


did I even make a sound? it's like I never made a sound

by themetaphorgirl



Series: Waving Through a Window [15]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Dilaudid, Drama, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Episode: s02e16 Fear and Loathing, Episode: s02e17 Distress, Episode: s02e18 Jones, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Seizures, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Spencer Reid Whump, seizure disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24167302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themetaphorgirl/pseuds/themetaphorgirl
Summary: The dilaudid gave him peace, but only temporarily, and the only way he could take away his shame and fear and pain was to use it again. Spencer found himself in a downward spiral that he couldn't escape, and he didn't know how to ask for help. And his family knew that something was wrong, but they didn't know how to talk to him.
Relationships: Derek Morgan & Spencer Reid, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau & Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & The BAU Team
Series: Waving Through a Window [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673107
Comments: 91
Kudos: 406





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "if you're falling in a forest, and there's nobody around, do you ever even crash or even make a sound?"
> 
> Spencer Reid grew up too fast, too harsh, too lonely. His "intellect is a shield which protects him from his emotions" and for a long time he thought he could be just fine without connections. After all, he learned quickly how to survive as a little kid in high school, as a child prodigy in college, as a fatherless kid taking care of his mother while she couldn't take care of him. He could rely on his intelligence, instead of feelings.
> 
> Once he joined the BAU, however, the team quickly formed their own ideas.
> 
> Part 15 of 25
> 
> also published on ff.net under the name Keitorin Asthore

_did I even make a sound?_

They told him he could stay home for at least a week, longer if he wanted.

He came back after three days.

He couldn't stay home. Home was where he woke up screaming from nightmares, where he didn't have the energy to do much more than move from his bed to the couch and back, where there was nothing to distract the tumbling and twisting of his thoughts. Where there was nothing and no one to stop him from reaching for the little glass bottles hidden in his medicine cabinet.

He was in pain, he kept telling himself, and he needed something to take the pain away. Never mind that the prescribed medication sat on his kitchen counter, untouched. He took his antibiotics religiously, but the hospital prescribed painkillers didn't do enough, didn't take away the ache in his bones or the soreness of his muscles or the clenching in his chest.

At least that's what he told himself.

He stretched out the time between doses, teetering on the edge of withdrawal, but when the head-splitting migraines began to pound behind his eyes and the nausea began to pull at his stomach he would limp to the bathroom and take the little glass bottle out and slide the needle into his skin.

It was bliss. It was warmth. It was relief flooding into his veins, coursing through his bloodstream, settling in his chest as his brain sent out massive amounts of dopamine. It was his mind going quiet, turning off his thoughts, letting him sink into a puddle where he felt nothing, did nothing, was nothing.

The shame set in as the bliss began to fade, shame and regret and panic, and he would tell himself _no, not again, that was the last time,_ and it was, it was the last time until he felt the pain again, the terror, the anxiety bubbling up in his throat until he was about to choke, and he would find himself in the bathroom again, avoiding his haggard reflection until he felt the silver-cold needle prick in the vulnerable crook of his elbow and he could taste peace strawberry-sweet in his mouth again.

He needed to be distracted.

He went back to work.

He didn't tell anyone he was coming back. Doubtless Garcia would have gotten him a cake, and they would have left nice notes in his desk, and they would have been prepared to be careful and thoughtful around him. He knew he didn't deserve cake and kindness and gentleness, so what he got instead was a startled "oh, Reid!" from JJ as she nearly dropped her coffee cup when he rounded the corner to the bullpen.

He had hovered there for a moment, clinging to the strap of his messenger bag. "I felt better," he had lied, smiling like a jack o'lantern, hollow and too bright. "What have I missed?"

They were between cases, they told him, and he settled back into his old routines and his old conversations, never giving his friends the time to remember that he was fragile and stamped with "handle with care" across his forehead, but his old routine fit like a coat that had shrunk in the wash, unable to wrap around him with its familiar comfort. Instead he relied on taking the dilaudid as soon as he got home and sighing aloud in his silent apartment, and when he didn't sleep and couldn't eat he took it again, and then he would go to work and start over.

That was fine until they got their next case.

He sat at the round table, half listening as JJ sketched out the details they knew, nibbling half-heartedly from the jar of cashews Gideon had brought to the meeting. He rubbed his hand over his mouth as he stared at a crime scene photo- a pretty girl half buried in leaves, her arms outstretched like Jesus on the cross, the lighting harsh and overexposed from the flash.

_Cold air sucking at his throat, the smell of wet rot, the strain on his elbows as he pushed himself off the ground and stared in horror at the dark figure looming over him, the sudden sharp pain blossoming in his jaw as Hankel struck him._

He wasn't there anymore. He knew that. He forced himself to sit up, drop his hand, focus, try to think of anything to add to the conversation. His mind was blank. The beginning of a headache pulsed over his right eye and he pressed his fingertips to his forehead. It did nothing relieve the pressure and he settled for covering his mouth with his hand, feeling his own warm breath on his cold skin to ground himself. He dropped his head as a different photo was passed in front of him, a different girl, her eyes blank and wide open.

_Half conscious, his body limp as Hankel dragged him through the wet fields, his head striking the soft ground, his eyes half lidded, the stars too white and too big in the dark sky, and he couldn't scream, he couldn't, he couldn't-_

His mouth went dry and he swallowed hard, hunching in his chair. _Focus,_ he told himself. _Focus focus focus…_

"Reid?"

He blinked. "Hm?"

The conference room was empty except Gideon. "Didn't you hear Hotch?" he said. "Wheels up in thirty. You ready to go?"

"Oh," Spencer said, his tongue thick. "Uh-huh." He gathered up his things hastily. "I'm sorry, I...zoned out a little."

Gideon took off his half-moon reading glasses and tucked them in his shirt pocket. "You don't have to come on this one if you're not ready," he said quietly. "I think you came back to work too soon. You might not be in a healthy enough place to participate on this one."

"No, no, I'm ready," he said quickly, a little too quickly. "I feel better staying busy."

Gideon surveyed him closely and Spencer held his breath. "Let someone know if you need to step back and take a break," he said. "No one will think less of you if you need to stop and rest. Your body is still healing."

Spencer touched his temple, expecting to feel the neat row of stitches hiding under his hair, but they'd been taken out a few days ago. "I...I'll remember that," he said.

"Did you hear back from the follow-up testing?" Gideon asked. "Your seizures. I know that was a cause for concern."

"Not yet," he said. "Nothing conclusive."

Gideon nodded. "Take it easy on this one," he said. "At least stay back if there's a takedown." He held out his hand to usher Spencer out of the room. "No sense pushing yourself too hard."

He picked up his go bag and kept his messenger bag slung close across his chest. The little glass bottles clinked merrily at the bottom, hidden under books and wrapped in a sweater, but he was positive they could all hear it, and it wasn't until he was safely in his seat on the jet, the back tucked behind his legs, that he could breathe.

"Hey, you want some company?"

He looked up, almost startled to see JJ smiling at him. "Uh-huh," he said.

She sat down in the seat across from him. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," he said. "A lot...a lot better."

"Good," she said. "I'm sorry we didn't do anything more to celebrate you coming back. Garcia was planning a whole party, but we weren't expecting you back so soon."

"No, it's fine," he said. "I don't need a party. I'm just glad to be here."

"We're glad to have you back," she said, and he could tell she meant it, and shame crept hot and prickly across the back of his neck, because if JJ knew the truth, she wouldn't want him there at all. He turned and gazed out the window, watching the jet taxi down the runway and climb into the gray March sky.

"It's been a while since we had a case in the city," JJ said as she pulled out her phone. "New York, New York."

"Too bad we're flying right past it straight to the suburbs," Morgan snorted.

"Hey, this is weird," Emily said, frowning at the casefile open on her lap. "There are traces of GHB found in in the first two victims, but no sign of sexual assault. So why would the unsub use a date rape drug to commit a hate crime?"

Spencer bit his lip.

_The bare lightbulb blazing overhead, the only light in the room, and the acrid smell of burning fish, the pinch of the belt clenching too tight around his bicep and Tobias's gentle callused hands on his cold skin, and the sharp slip of the needle in his vein and the breath catching in his throat as his head flopped back and the world faded white._

"Maybe he wants to weaken them so they can't fight back," he said aloud, and he waited for someone to ask- _but why do you know that, Spencer? How do you know that, Spencer?_

"But there was no GHB in the victims of the double homicide," Emily countered.

"There's a lot that's different about the double homicide," Morgan said, his coffee mug balanced easily in his hand.

"The question is why," Hotch said.

"All right, we just got new information," JJ said, holding up a photocopied page. Spencer frowned; he hadn't even noticed her get up. "A few weeks before the murder of Sandra Davis and Ken Newcombe, a threatening letter was delivered to Sandra Davis's door. She showed it to her parents, who then notified the police. The police never figured out who wrote it."

She handed him the paper as she took her seat again and he squinted at the text. "We see Ken with you and it makes us sick," he read aloud. "Take care to stop this now or you will pay. If you tell anyone about this, you will pay." His frown deepened. "Strange. Doesn't seem real."

"What do you mean?" JJ said.

"First of all, the use of 'we' in a threat this direct is almost always bogus."

"One individual trying to diffuse responsibility," Emily nodded.

"Also, the message itself seems contradictory," he said. "On the one hand, _take care to stop this now, or you will pay_? Presumably, they want them to stop seeing each other. But then, on the other hand, they don't want them to go public with it. _If you tell anyone about this, you will pay_."

"The point of hate crimes is to increase publicity, not decrease it. It's like terrorism," Hotch said.

"An effective threat lets everybody know that they're in danger if they do this behavior. The author would want Sandra to tell people about the note."

"Doesn't sound like a guy who's actually prepared to kill," JJ said.

"Actually, it... doesn't sound like a guy at all," Spencer said. " _Take care to stop this_ implies empathy. _Take care?_ Males don't use this type of language, especially when they're trying to threaten somebody. This message is certainly written by a female, and based on the lack of psychological sophistication, I'd say it's most likely an adolescent."

"You think a girl killed these kids?" Emily said skeptically.

"I think a girl wrote this note."

"Let's call that mystery number one," Gideon said from behind his newspaper.

Hotch's usual frown deepened. "You got a number two?"

"Maybe," Gideon said. "Says here the autopsy on Sandra Davis was inconclusive."

"She suffered blunt force trauma to the face, she had some bruising around her neck," JJ added. "Cause of death is still unclear, coroner's working on it."

A lot of questions," Hotch said. "Let's get started on some answers."

Spencer faded back out, leaning his head against the window. No one seemed to suspect anything was wrong with him. And his mind was still working correctly, still putting thoughts together. Everything was fine. Everything would be fine, he was just…so tired.

It was a fairly short flight from Quantico to Westchester. He was tired out already, as if sharing his thoughts on the plane had sapped what energy he had. Once they got to the unmarked SUVs he sat in the passenger seat while Hotch drove, letting his thoughts empty out.

The dilaudid was beginning to wear off.

He didn't realize he had fallen asleep until he felt someone patting his knee. "Reid. Wake up."

He cracked open one eye to find Hotch looking at him. "Are we there yet?" he mumbled sleepily.

"Already there," Hotch said. "Prentiss and Morgan are going to talk to a girl who may have written the letter, Gideon and I are going to the crime scene. I need you and JJ to go to the coroner's office. Are you up for it?"

"Uh-huh, of course," he said, forcing himself to sit up. "I'm fine, Hotch, don't worry."

Hotch squeezed his knee. "All right," he said. "See you in a bit, then."

JJ climbed into the driver's seat, the keys in her hand. "You ready for this?" she said as she adjusted the seat for her shorter legs. She paused. "Really, Spence. Do you want to go back to the hotel and take a nap or something? You look exhausted. This is probably the most exertion you've done since-"

"Hey, we should probably go," Spencer interrupted. He cleared his throat. "They'll, uh...want us back soon."

"Sure," she said warily.

She flipped on the radio and turned the car back out onto the road. Spencer leaned back against the headrest. He'd gotten used to his team members' choices of music. Gideon liked talk radio and the half-whispers of NPR, Hotch preferred silence but often turned on classic rock. Morgan was hip hop and rap, absently drumming his fingers to the beat on the steering wheel and mouthing the words, and Emily was '90s girl power, singing along without a sense of pitch or rhythm but a lot of feeling. He hadn't been in the car with Garcia driving yet, but he'd heard her music in her lab- a range of everything from showtunes to K-pop to Starbucks-style indie. JJ, though, liked her music loud and high energy, veering into pop punk with driving drums. Not exactly relaxing, but it was what he associated with her now, and he closed his eyes and listened.

The music cut out in the middle of an impassioned guitar solo. JJ was already out of the car, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head. "You awake?" she said.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, climbing out of the passenger seat and unfolding his long legs. He felt unsteady, like he'd been at sea for too long, but he followed her into the coroner's office.

The morgue was quiet and cool but his senses were dialed up to eleven. Fluorescent light glinted off every silver surface, the clean sting of disinfectant burnt his nose, every metallic click and crunch pinged around in his head like a pinball. He kept his bag on his shoulder, grounding him, and he let JJ do all the talking.

It was one thing to see the girls in the photographs. It was another to see them laid out on the tables, their features frozen, their colors faded. He had been around countless victims before, visited dozens of different medical examiners, but this was different.

_Waking up on the filthy cabin floor, blood and bile flooding his mouth, the ache in his ribs where he'd been compressed back to life, the bare bulb shining above him like a beacon, burning his eyes, swinging like a hypnotist's watch, the fading sense of warmth and comfort and light replaced by cold and pain and fear._

"Thank you so much for your time," JJ was saying, and he faded back into the present, his mouth dry. "We'll be in touch if we have any questions."

She was walking out of the morgue, leaving him, leaving him behind, and he nearly tripped over himself in his effort to get out of there. He followed her, dazed and dizzy, and the sudden burst of early spring sunlight nearly rendered him blind.

"Here, can you take this?" she said, and she lifted the flap of his messenger bag, making room to slide the coroner's report inside, and he jumped, because the little glass bottles were jangling as merrily as Christmas jingle bells.

"I got it," he said, his voice foreign in his own ears, and he shoved the report into the bag and covered it close. "I got it."

JJ didn't seem to notice his sudden burst of panic. "Well, that wasn't very helpful," she sighed as she climbed back into the driver's seat.

He flipped through his thoughts like a deck of cards, searching for a recollection. "Yeah, a lot of overkill," he said, and that seemed enough to assure JJ that he'd paid attention. He buckled his seatbelt and slumped, nausea pressing at the base of his ribcage.

JJ reached for the radio, then paused. "What would you like to listen to?" she asked.

He blinked. "Hm?"

"You pick," she said. "It seems fair."

He shrugged. "I don't really listen to music," he said.

"Oh, come on," he said. "I'm sure there's something you'd like to listen to."

He shrugged again. His parents liked music- his father playing cassette tapes of Roy Orbison and ELO, his mother putting on records of Rodgers and Hammerstein and Wagner. "I'm not sure what I like," he said, leaning back and closing his eyes.

JJ switched through the stations and settled on something classical with lush, old-fashioned violins. "You look pretty tired, you probably want something a little calmer," she said. "This is pretty."

"Adophe Adam."

"Hm?"

"Adolphe Adam, it's a ballet called Giselle," he said without opening his eyes.

"It sounds happy."

"That's because it's from the first act," he said, biting back a yawn. "Right after this she discovers the man she's in love with is engaged to someone else, and she goes mad and dies. In some earlier versions she takes her lover's sword and kills herself."

"Oh," JJ said. "So...not so happy."

"Not quite," he yawned. "In act two she's a ghost trying to stop the other ghosts from killing the guy." He slipped down a little further in his seat. "You can turn on your own music if you want."

"This is fine," she said. "I can listen to deceptively happy ballet scores for a while."

He folded his arms over his stomach and listened to the music. JJ was right, it was a lot calmer, and he was tempted to drift off to sleep again, but he'd already dozed off once that day, he didn't need to do it again. So he forced himself to stay awake until she parked at the police department.

His hands trembled as he closed the car door. He felt hot and cold all at once, and his head was beginning to throb. "I'm going to run to the bathroom really quick," he said, and JJ nodded.

He forced himself to walk calmly, normally into the yellow light of the tiled bathroom. At first he tapped the stall open- but that wasn't enough, wouldn't be a safe enough barrier, and he fumbled to lock the flimsy wood door.

He caught his reflection and froze. No wonder everyone kept asking him if something was wrong. His cheekbones were sharp and hollow, his skin jaundiced and a vein popping in his temple, his eyes clouded and ringed in gray shadows. A lock of hair dangled limply over one eye but he didn't bother to brush it away.

He forced himself to tear away from his reflection and fumbled in his bag, searching until his slender fingers closed around the little glass vials with their pearlized liquid dancing inside.

_His own voice, weak and childish in fear. "Please, I don't want it, I don't want…"_

_His begging going unheeded, Tobias's rough dirty hands soft against his arm. The needle sliding under his skin, the breath held in his lungs bursting from his mouth in a soft gasp, his head falling back and his eyes staring, staring at the naked golden lightbulb overhead until it turned into a small sun, and then the sun faded away to a soft warm dark._

"Anybody seen Reid?"

He panicked, dropping the bottles back into his bag and ripping out the papers from the medical examiner. The bottles weren't deep enough, weren't safe enough, but he could keep them hidden for now, but they were looking for him, he had to go-

"Where's Reid?"

He jostled the cheap lock open and jogged back to the conference room. He paused long enough at the little break area to pour himself a cup of coffee. It smelled burned but he didn't care, he needed hot and caffeine more than taste.

"Reid?"

"Coming," he called back, grabbing up a handful of white sugar packets and shoving them in his pocket before running the rest of the way to their outpost.

"There you are," Hotch said.

He held out the paper. "Coroner's report," he said. He sank down at an empty seat, avoiding Emily and Morgan's eyes on him, and set his cup down without taking a sip.

Hotch skimmed it quickly. "Victim had been beaten so extensively that the cause of death was indeterminate," he said, his eyebrows raising. "Post-mortem stab wounds were also discovered."

"Post-mortem stabs, huh?" Morgan said.

The local detective frowned. "What?"

"Post-mortem stab wounds almost always indicate sexual homicide," Hotch explained.

"Uh, this is also a fairly extreme overkill, which is markedly different from the other two girls," he said.

More crime scene photos spread across the table. His stomach dropped like he'd crossed the peak of a rollercoaster.

_The cuffs keeping his wrists locked and his hands useless, Charles's grip on his cold bare ankle and his grimy nails digging into soft thin skin, the sudden jolt of pain against the sole of his foot, shooting up into his ankle and shin and knee, again and again and again, and he cried out, but no one cared, no one heard him, and Charles struck him again and again and-_

He blinked unsteadily, his lips slack. Thank god he was sitting, or his knees might have buckled. The others continued their conversation and under the cover of his thick sweater his body began to shake. Cold sweat prickled at the back of his neck. He breathed slowly, shallowly, the only thing he could control right that second.

* * *

Hotch watched Reid out of the corner of his eye. The youngest member of his team had gone completely white, his hazel eyes glazed over and staring at nothing across the room. For a moment Hotch was afraid he was on the verge of either throwing up or passing out.

It was too soon for Reid to be back at work. They all knew it, they'd all talked about it, but they all knew better than to try and convince him to stay home. All they could do was keep an eye on him and hope for the best.

This, Hotch knew, was not the best.

PTSD was expected after what Reid had endured. Two and a half days of physical and mental torture, some of which Hotch had witnessed first hand. Sometimes when he looked at Reid he was struck with the memory of his limp body sprawled on the floor of the cabin as Tobias Hankel tried to push life back into his lungs while the rest of them had to stand there, helpless.

He knew Reid was struggling- wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping. Wasn't talking. No one had been able to get two serious words out of him since they'd gotten him back. He was fading in front of their eyes, growing quieter, thinner, paler.

Something was wrong- horribly, terribly, inescapably wrong- and no one knew what it was. Except Reid. It was killing Hotch to have a problem he couldn't fix.

He sent the rest of the team out of the room, but Spencer didn't even seem to notice they'd left. Hotch closed the door and sat down beside him. "Reid," he said gently.

Spencer raised his head, slow and drunken. "Hm?" he said.

"I think we're calling it a night here," he said. "It's getting late and I don't have anything for you to do."

"Are you sure?" Spencer said. "I can work. The profile, I-"

"JJ is working on it with Emily so she can give a press release tomorrow," he said. "Really, I don't have anything for you to do here. You might as well go back to the hotel and get some sleep."

Spencer rubbed his eye with his fist, a childish gesture. "Are you sure?" he said again, soft and tired.

"Positive," Hotch said. "I'll have someone drive you to the hotel, you're in no shape to drive. Morgan's sharing a room with you, I can have him pick up something for you to eat." He paused, waiting for an answer, but Spencer just blinked blearily. "Reid?"

"Uh-huh, okay," he said, pushing himself up from his seat. He wobbled, gripping the back of the chair like a child learning to walk, but he didn't ask for help. He picked up his bag and left, hunched under the weight.

Hotch watched him leave. He didn't know what to say, or what to do, but he could feel Spencer slipping away and he didn't know how to stop it.

* * *

Morgan whistled under his breath as he walked into the hotel. All things considered, things weren't too terrible. They were making some solid headway with the case, the local PD was cooperating (for the most part), and he was out of there before ten. He'd even had time to stop and pick up a decent dinner instead of settling for a 24-hour McDonalds or the hotel vending machine. And he'd picked up dinner for Reid, because no doubt the kid hadn't gotten anything to feed himself. If they left him to his own devices, he'd probably live off Starbucks and sugar, or more likely forget to eat entirely.

He knocked on the door with his elbow. "Reid, hey, let me in," he called, juggling the bags in his hand. Hotch had sent him back to the hotel hours earlier, he had to be there. But, then again, Reid had been looking like a strong wind could knock him over, so there was a distinct possibility he was already asleep. He fumbled around to get the hotel room key out of his wallet and let himself in.

The lights were still on and both beds still made. Reid sprawled on his back on the bed by the window, still dressed and his cardigan tossed on the floor. One arm was flung over his head and his lips were parted as he breathed deeply.

Morgan grinned to himself and tried to stay quiet as he set the food down on the table, but Reid roused with a full body spasm. "Wha- who- why're you-"

"Relax, pretty boy, it's just me," Morgan said. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you up."

Reid exhaled deeply, dragging his hand over the side of his face. His left sleeve was unbuttoned at the wrist, the cuff flapping uselessly, but his right was still fastened. "Wasn't asleep," he mumbled.

"Sure looks like you were," Morgan said. "But hey, you hungry? I picked up dinner. I even texted Garcia to make sure I got something you like, I know you can be picky sometimes."

"Thanks," Reid said, but he made no move to get up. He was still wearing his shoes.

Morgan set the food out and turned on the TV. "Come on, kid, get up before it gets cold," he said.

He settled down to eat, relaxing back against the headboard of his bed as he flipped channels. He wasn't really paying much attention to Reid, if he was honest, but he did notice when he got up to throw his trash away. Reid had moved to the table, his long legs sprawling, but he was only picking at his dinner, dragging his fork around aimlessly with his chin in his hand.

"Reid? You feeling okay?"

Reid took a moment before reacting. "Hm? No...yeah, yeah."

"You haven't eaten much," Morgan said. "You want me to get something else for you?"

"No, it's good, I'm just full," Reid said, leaning back in his chair. "Thanks for...for getting it for me. I can pay you back."

"No worries," Morgan said. "But you need to eat something, pretty boy. You're getting to be skin and bones."

Reid shook his head, slow and unsteady like he was drunk, or drugged. "Really, Morgan...you don't have to worry," he said. He pushed himself up. "I'm gonna get ready for bed."

"All right," Morgan said warily. He boxed up Reid's uneaten dinner and stuck it in the minifridge. The kid wasn't hungry now, but he'd surely be hungry later.

Reid stumbled out of the bathroom dressed in his pajamas, a long sleeve shirt and striped flannel pants, and fell into bed without a word, asleep the second he hit the pillow. That was unusual- Morgan had shared a hotel room with him a dozen times before, and typically Reid tossed and turned for hours before dozing off. But maybe it was for the best.

Reid shouldn't have come back to work so soon after his ordeal. They all knew it, talked about it behind his back. He had been tortured, traumatized, and he sat at his desk like nothing had happened. But he was pale and subdued, zoning out of conversations, picking at the skin around his nails till his fingers bled and averting his eyes from crime scene photos, and he pretended that no one noticed.

No one could get two words out of him, no matter who tried. All they got was a vague angelic smile and a change in conversation. Hotch hadn't even gotten Reid's additions to the Hankel casefile so they could close it- not that anyone was pushing him to do it; Gideon had said in no uncertain terms that he could write out his experience whenever he was ready, no matter how long it took.

And they all knew better than to try to push Reid into talking about anything personal. Hell, they'd worked together two years before he told them about his mother's illness and hospitalization. Being able to talk to them about what happened in that Georgia graveyard after just a couple of weeks would be nothing short of miraculous.

Morgan switched off the television. He usually preferred to stay up late, but he had a feeling there would be some kind of progress in the case by the time they got to the station in the morning.

He was just about to turn off the lights when he heard it. Reid was mumbling in his sleep, nothing coherent enough for him to understand. Morgan crept closer.

"Reid?" he whispered.

Reid's head turned against the pillow, his hair tangling around his neck. "'M not," he murmured. "I'm...I'm not."

"You're not what, Reid?" Morgan asked. He sat down next to him, mapping out the situation. PTSD dreams weren't new, he'd had plenty of nightmares himself after bad cases, and honestly he should have seen this coming. He rested his hand over Reid's narrow chest and felt his pulse vibrating under his palm. "Reid? You with me, man?"

"I'm not a sinner," Reid mumbled. His arms fell against the pillow over his head and his long slim fingers clenched and unclenched like a heartbeat. "I'm not, I'm not a sinner."

"You're not," Morgan soothed, pressing gently his collarbone, remembering the hazy video of Spencer lifeless on the floor and a stranger bringing him back. "You're not, Spencer, you're one of the best people I've ever known. Wake up, it's just a bad dream."

Spencer's eyes flew open but Morgan knew he wasn't seeing him. "I'm not a sinner!" he said, and the words untangled into a scream, high and tight and panicked, and he fought against Morgan's gentle touch, thrashing and kicking.

Morgan fended him off, sliding an arm under his back and pinning him against his chest as easily as he would a child. "It's just a dream, Spencer, you're okay," he said. "You're safe. It's just a bad dream."

The scream broke off suddenly and Spencer went limp in his grip, recognition flashing in his eyes. Morgan leaned him back down against his pillow. "'m sorry," he gasped. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry-"

"Don't apologize," Morgan said. He rested his hand on Spencer's collarbone again, measuring the beats, trying to gauge if his heart rate was slowing down. "We all get dreams like that sometime. After what you went through, I'm not surprised at all."

Spencer closed his eyes and let out a wet shuddering breath, dragging his hand over his head. "Sorry I woke you up," he mumbled.

"You didn't. And even if you did, I wouldn't care. You need me, you call me, understand?"

Spencer looked away from him through his fingers, his eyes glassy. Morgan could see him shutting down in front of him. "Hey. You wanna talk?" Spencer shook his head. "You want me to get JJ? I'm sure she's still awake." A pause, then another headshake.

"I just want to go back to sleep, thank you," Spencer whispered, and Morgan knew a lie when he heard it but he had no idea how to call him out.

"I'm gonna get you some water," he said.

He filled up a glass tumbler on the bathroom counter with tepid water. When he was a kid his mother or his big sisters always got him water when he woke up in the middle of the night. For some reason nothing ever felt better than that cup of room temperature sink water in at two in the morning, and he was always fast asleep in seconds afterwards.

Spencer took the cup and sipped it gingerly. Morgan sat down across him and leaned his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped. "You're not a sinner, Reid," he said quietly.

Reid looked at him over the rim of his cup. "Hm?"

"You were saying...you weren't a sinner," Morgan said. "Now, that seems to me like something Hankel would say."

"Charles," Reid said. "Charles would say that. Not Tobias." His shirt sleeve was sliding down his forearm, nearly to his elbow, and he pulled it back into place.

"Sure," Morgan said gently. "Listen, Reid...what you went through. We're not expecting you to bounce back right away like nothing happened. It's gonna take some time to heal."

"I'll be fine," Reid said. He drained the rest of the water and set the empty glass on the nightstand, and Morgan was suddenly struck with the thought that Spencer probably didn't remember a time as a little kid when someone got him a glass of water in the middle of the night and sat by him till he fell asleep again. "I'm going to go back to sleep. Thanks, Morgan."

He laid back down, pulling the blankets up to his shoulder, and closed his eyes. It was clear the conversation was over.

Morgan switched off the lights and went to bed, listening for the sound of Reid's breathing evening out and deepening into sleep. He never heard it. He woke up a few times in the night and glanced over at Reid, and even with his back turned towards him he could tell that Reid hadn't dozed off.

Reid was out of bed at the first ring of the alarm, and Morgan was sure that he never fell asleep. But he didn't say anything, and Morgan didn't want to pry.

* * *

Spencer hunched in the uncomfortable wooden chair, his hands clasped firmly on the table to keep them from trembling. He forced himself to make eye contact with each person speaking, forced himself to listen to what they said, repeating their words in his mind, but nothing stuck. The words filtered out of his memory as fast as they were spoken.

He opened his eyes wider, breathing slowly. The local reverend had spoken on the news, riling everyone up about hate crimes that might not be hate crimes. JJ was talking to him. Gideon and Morgan were going to speak with the families of the victims.

He stayed behind with Hotch and Emily. Luckily the local department kept Hotch busy. And Prentiss didn't know him well enough to pester him about how he was feeling.

He felt awful. He didn't sleep after his nightmare, too afraid of what he might see in his sleep, too afraid of what he might say without realizing it. Even when he heard Morgan's breathing even out, deep and steady, he stared at the ceiling, clutching the slick hotel quilt to his chest, his arm burning with his secret.

They delivered the profile in the early afternoon. Gideon had pulled out a chair and silently guided him to sit, even though everyone else was standing, and he didn't fight back. When it was his turn to speak he did so slowly, evenly, carefully, measuring out his words as he tangled his fingers and flexed his hands back and forth, back and forth. The lack of sleep and the slow draw of the dilaudid wearing off made him feel thick-headed, nauseated, dizzy. He inhaled, held the breath, exhaled. No one saw him.

He slipped away after the delivery, hiding in the alcove where their boards were set up. Gideon followed him. "Any thoughts?" he inquired.

Spencer shrugged. "Not at the moment," he said.

Gideon picked up a photo and moved it to the other side of the board. "That's not like you," he said mildly. "You feeling all right?"

Spencer shifted the papers on the table. "Didn't sleep well last night," he said, short and terse.

"Do you need to go back to the hotel and rest?"

He closed his eyes for a moment and he was gone, he could feel the bite of cold in the air and the cut of the cuffs into his wrists and the throbbing pain in his temple. He reached up and touched the ridge the removed stitches had left behind. "I don't need to rest," he said.

JJ jogged up the steps to them. "Tips have just started to come in," she said. "So far, we have fingers pointed at a minister-"

But Gideon was gazing at the photos pinned to the wall, photos of dead girls buried in the leaves and he was gone again, gone…

 _The click and whirr as Raphael spun the action of the gun. His own voice, unfamiliar with fear, telling him_ you don't have to do this. _The silver glint of the gun as Raphael pointed it to his head, the terror beating rabbit-fast in his chest and his face twisting as he braced himself for the shot._

He opened his eyes and swallowed hard. Gideon and JJ were still talking. They hadn't noticed him.

He forced himself to listen, enough to add to their conversation, pushing to give his voice the energy his body didn't have. His knees buckled and he eased himself into a chair before they could spot him.

He stayed there for a while, making himself look busy as the rest of the team popped in and out. His back stayed towards the evidence board, but he could sense the presence of the dead girls behind him, as if he was a little boy walking through the haunted house at a county fair.

"Hey, we're ordering dinner," Emily said, and he jumped about a foot in the air. "Want anything?"

"Dinner?" he said. "I didn't know it was that late."

"Yeah, it's almost seven. You wanna join us?"

"Um, no," he said, offering her a half smile. "Thanks, though."

"You sure?" Emily said, raising an eyebrow. "I heard there's a great Indian place about two blocks from here. You like Indian, right?"

He did, but the crawling in his bloodstream reminded him that it was just over twelve hours since his last dose. Today he had left the little vials in the bottom of his go bag, because this morning he thought he was strong, he hadn't been taking it that long, it was too risky to carry with him everywhere, he could go a couple of days without it. Tonight he regretted it.

"Yeah, just...not in the mood," he said. "Thanks, though."

* * *

"He said he's not in the mood," Emily said glumly.

JJ frowned. "You told him there was Indian, right? He loves Indian food."

"I did, I swear," Emily said. "He said no." JJ rubbed her fingertips against her temples. "He doesn't look good, does he? I mean...I've worked with him the least out of everybody, but it doesn't take a profiler to see that he…"

Her voice trailed off. "He had a nightmare last night," JJ said. "I could hear it through the walls…Morgan said he wouldn't talk about it."

"Poor kid," Emily said. "If I went through what he had, though, I wouldn't sleep either."

JJ got up from the table. "Go ahead and order for me, I'm going to go check on him," she said.

They had left Spencer in the little divided alcove with the rest of the evidence; she found him sitting exactly where she had left him, his forearms braced against the edge of the table as if it was the only thing keeping him awake and upright. "Hey," she said gently. "How's it going?"

"Fine, I guess," he said, squinting up at her. "I didn't realize how late it was."

"Are you sure you're not hungry?" she asked. "Emily's just now making the order, I can add in whatever you'd like."

"Yeah, I'm not hungry," he said.

His eyes were half-lidded as if he was on the verge of tipping into sleep and his hands were trembling, keeping a tenuous hold of a wooden pencil. "Do you want to go back to the hotel?" she asked. "It's okay if you-"

"No, I want to stay here," he said firmly, and his fingers tightened so hard around the pencil his knuckles went white. "I don't need to go back. I can do my job, JJ."

"Okay, okay," she said. "How about we compromise? There's not a lot happening now, we're just waiting to hear back from Morgan. In the meantime, do you want to sleep a little?" She could tell the offer was tempting him as he bit at his chapped lower lip. "There's a really nice couch in one of the offices and pretty much everyone has gone home for the night. It'll be quiet, and I'll wake you up the second anything happens." She could see him calculating, weighing up the pros and cons. "If something goes on, you need to be at your best. We've all had to nap on the job before. Sleep now, be ready for the takedown later."

Finally he sighed. "Yes," he said. "I...I could probably doze off for a little while."

He pushed himself up from the chair slowly. "Is your ankle bothering you?" she asked.

"Just a little."

She slipped her arm around his slender waist and walked him over to the quiet office. Spencer sank down on the couch, his eyes already dropping. There wasn't a blanket, but she adjusted a throw pillow under his head.

"And you promise you'll wake me up the second you need me?" he asked.

"I promise," she said.

She waited until she was sure he was asleep, his chest steadily rising and sinking. It was the most peaceful she'd seen him since they'd found him in the graveyard, and for a moment all she wanted to do it was sit beside him and make sure he got the rest he deserved.

But there was work to be done, and he was safe, and she got up and left the room.

Everything happened so fast. They got the call from Morgan about the local officer getting shot while they were on patrol, and Hotch left immediately. And then they got the call about the new missing girl, Allie, and she and Gideon sat together in the dark vacant bullpen, lit by nearly useless desk lamps, and spoke in hushed voices as she made calls and he took notes.

"Guys, we got a witness." Spencer hovered anxiously in the doorway. "A girl who saw the report on the news; she said a guy came up to her around a month ago, claiming to work for a record company. She's on her way in."

Her hand was already on the receiver. "I'll call the others," she said.

She eyed Spencer as Hotch answered her call on the second ring. He seemed a little better- maybe the nap did do him some good.

Morgan made it back just in time to talk to the girl with Gideon; Hotch and Emily spoke to the local officers. She stayed at the desk, stacked with papers and littered with takeout containers, and waited by the phone. Spencer hovered close by, as if he was afraid to sit down.

"Hey," she said. "Did the nap help?"

"It didn't hurt," he shrugged. "What can I do now? I want to do something."

"All we can do is wait right now," she said. "Hopefully Gideon and Morgan can get something out of the girl." She sighed and started picking up empty takeout trays. "Might as well clean up, I guess. There's still some naan left, you want it?"

"Are you sure no one wants it?"

She handed him a piece. "Eat," she said, and he obeyed, slightly startled at her insistence. He helped her clean up, occasionally allowing her to hand him more bread.

"We got a name!" Morgan called, jumping up the stairs two at a time. "Call Garcia."

JJ sat down on the edge of the desk and picked up the phone. Spencer knelt on a chair, leaning over her; with the phone tucked under her chin she tore off another piece of naan and stuck it in his mouth. It caught him off guard but he ate it obediently. She set the phone on speaker and picked up her coffee cup.

"You've reached Garcia, who is currently _withering_ away without any attention from her beloved team."

JJ bit a grin. "Hey, mama, you've got me, Reid, and Jayje," Morgan said.

"I was beginning to think you guys had forgotten all about me."

"Well, we need you now more than ever, hot stuff," Morgan said. He leaned over the desk, nearly nudging Spencer out of the way. Spencer leaned over JJ's lap, his forearms resting on her thighs.

"Aw, it's like candy to my ears, sugar," Garcia said, and JJ could hear the smile in her voice. "Go."

"Here's the scoop. The guy's a freelance musician, played keyboard for the girls' high school musical. We contacted the school and they gave us a name- Terrence Wakeland."

"Terrence Wakeland," Garcia echoed, her clattering keys loud and clear over the speaker. "In the New York metropolitan area, including Westchester County...computer says three."

Spencer leaned closer to the speakerphone. "He may work at a recording studio, or a record company," he suggested.

"Okay...I'm going to cross with IRS records...gotcha. Mount Vernon, just outside the Bronx. A & L Studios. Looks like they went belly-up a few months ago...but he still works there as a security guard."

"Thanks, mama, you're the best," Morgan said. He elbowed Spencer lightly. "C'mon, let's go."

JJ caught Morgan's arm. "Hey, can you…?" She tugged him aside. "Are you sure he's ready to go on a takedown?"

Morgan scratched the back of his neck. "Damn," he said. "He...well...he might not be."

"I can hear you," Spencer called. "I took a nap and JJ fed me, I can go."

She could see Morgan hesitating and fixed him with a firm glare that said _nope, no way, absolutely not._

"Reid...I think she has a point," Morgan said.

"I can do it," Spencer protested.

Morgan strode over to him, arms crossed. "There's a lot I could say and I don't think you'd hear any of it," he said. "But no matter what, I don't think your ankle is up for a lot of running. You take one bad fall, you're out of the field for a while."

Spencer's mouth twisted. "Fine," he said begrudgingly. "I'll stay behind. I guess."

Morgan clapped a big hand on his shoulder. "You can stay here with JJ or head back to the hotel and get some sleep, either one," he said. "See you soon, okay?"

Spencer shrugged. JJ threw her empty coffee cup away as Morgan picked up his things and left. "Don't make that face," she warned.

"I'm not making a face."

She stacked papers neatly on the desk and slid the phone back into its place. "He's right, you know," she said. "Running isn't a great idea right now. Your ankle was just about broken when we found you and-"

"I don't want to talk about it," he said in a low voice.

She didn't push him. He sat down heavily in a chair, his long legs sprawled out, and rested his chin in his hand. She had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn't want to go back to the hotel and get further left behind, and he certainly wouldn't want her hovering and big-sister-ing him. So she gave him space, finding things to do around the station and staying close to the phone.

Emily got back to the station a little past midnight, her footsteps echoing in the quiet precinct. "Hey," she said. "We got Wakeland. They're finishing up at the scene, Hotch sent me back to get you guys. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I've just been waiting to hear from you."

Emily nodded towards Spencer. "How's he doing?" she asked.

JJ looked back. Spencer had his head down on the table, resting on his forearms. "Rough," she sighed. "Stubborn as always."

Emily shifted her weight. "I know I'm still new to the team, all things considered, but...he's not acting normally, is he?" she said. "I mean...every time he's part of a conversation he just...fades out."

"Yeah," JJ said quietly. "I've noticed."

Emily shrugged. "I don't know, I'm probably just reading too much in it," she said. "Profiler problems, what can I say?"

JJ half laughed. "If you want to go out to the car, I'll wake him up and bring him outside," she said. "It might take a second."

"Sure, no problem."

JJ crouched beside Spencer and touched his back lightly. He was sleeping so deeply she didn't have the heart to wake him, but there was no way she could get him to the car otherwise.

"Spence," she whispered. "Wake up. Case is closed, we're going back to the hotel." He didn't rouse. She smoothed her hand over his unruly hair. "Spence, come on. Time to go."

He lurched back, mumbling something under his breath, and his fingers twitched. JJ placed her hand over his. "Hey, it's okay," she soothed, rubbing the spot between his shoulder blades. "You're okay."

He shivered and she could feel every bump of his spine under her palm. "JJ?" he said blearily.

"Yeah, Spence," she said. "You ready to go?"

He closed his eyes. "What d'we have left to do?"

"Nothing, we got Wakeland," she reassured him. "Let's get you to sleep in a bed and not hunched over a table, okay?"

"Was I asleep?"

"Just dozing a little," she said.

The ride back was quiet. She didn't try to help him into the building, but she stayed in the hall for a moment, making sure he got back to his room safely. He struggled to get the room key into the slot, his hand spasming and shaking.

"Hey," she said gently. "Are you okay?" He nodded. "If you need a hand, I can-"

"Thanks, JJ," he whispered, and he disappeared into the room.

* * *

Spencer closed the door tight behind him and stumbled towards his go-bag, his hand slipping against the light switch as he fell to his knees. He was hot and cold all over, his muscles tensing, his brain running in overdrive. The sleep he'd managed at the office had only served to make him feel thick-headed and nauseated. He was in pain, and the medicine would help, it would, he would feel so much better…

He dug out a vial and a clean needle, his fingers shaking. The churning in his brain revved like an engine, running through his body at a thousand miles an hour. He was hurting, he was hurting _so bad_ , he wanted it to go away, turn it off, turn it off, _turn it off-_

He rocked back on his heels, the air in his lungs escaping like steam from a teakettle. The relief was warm, instantaneous, reassuring-

The door opened.

He dropped the bottle back in the bag and covered it with a shirt as Morgan walked in. "Hey, kid," he said.

"Hey," Spencer echoed, his lips clumsy like they'd been numbed. "How did everything go?"

He didn't hear Morgan because of the needle. The needle was in his hand, and he clenched his fist around it, hiding the orange cap between his fingers. Morgan's voice was a roar in his ear.

"Uh-huh," he said, but he hadn't heard anything he'd said.

Morgan picked up his clothes out of his bag. "I'm gonna take a shower," he said. "You good?"

"Uh-huh," he said again, and Morgan went into the bathroom and closed the door.

Spencer sagged in relief, tucking the needle into an inner pocket and zipping it shut, his fingers slipping on the pull. A second longer, and Morgan would have caught him.

His body felt soft and light and his mind was empty and quiet. He fumbled for last night's pajamas, leaving his clothes in a puddle on the floor, and crawled into bed. The high wrapped around him, drawing him down, and he fell asleep with the lights on, the covers still tangled around his hips.

He woke up in the wee hours of the morning, the first cracks of light peeking through the blinds, a headache pulsing behind his eyes. That was too close. He couldn't do this. He needed to stop using the dilaudid. He couldn't rely on it.

_It was just pain relief. And he was in pain. He needed it._

He tried to go back to sleep, but he couldn't. Morgan snored comfortably in the bed across the room. He thought of Morgan catching him with a needle in his arm, and in the dark he felt his face flush hot with shame.

He had to stop. He had to. That was his last dose.

They stayed in New York long enough for Morgan to attend the funeral of the fallen officer, and then they were on the jet home by early evening. He sat at the table, hoping he could keep his distance for the short flight, but Morgan sat across from him. Spencer averted his eyes, fiddling with a deck of cards- something mindless that would keep his hands busy and distract him from the ache in his body.

The cards fell still in his fingers after a while. He huddled in the seat and idly picked at the dead skin on his lips, the edges of his brain soft and fuzzy. The plane would land soon, and he could go home and dump his dollar-store heroin down the drain and throw away the empty bottles and everything would be back to normal.

"Reid?"

He raised his head slowly, sluggishly, his fingers falling from his mouth. "Hm?"

Morgan's eyes were soft and concerned- not an expression he was accustomed to seeing. "I said, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he said, shifting uncomfortably and fiddling with the cards before they slipped to the floor. He glanced around the quiet plane. "Thanks for broadcasting it."

He never spoke that sharply, not when it wasn't warranted, but his head ached. "Hey," Morgan said, and Spencer hid behind the cards. "Talk to me. Whatever you say to me in confidence is between us. You know that, right?"

He shrugged, his mouth curving in a pout. "I don't have anything to tell you," he said, and he flashed Morgan a grim, cheerless smile.

Morgan wasn't fooled. He leaned forward on his arms and Spencer shrunk away from him. "Reid, listen to me," he said softly. "What you went through out there...nobody expects you to rebound-"

"I can still do my job, all right?" he hissed, snapping the fanned-out deck closed. "I'm not gonna freak out."

"You think I don't know that?"

Spencer hesitated. If he could hesitate long enough, maybe Morgan would give up, pat him on the shoulder, give him the easy out of saying _you can always talk to me if you need to_ , because he didn't know how to need someone else, he didn't know how to voluntarily share the burden of his secrets, he didn't know how to tell someone else that he was hurting and he was alone and he was _scared_.

But Morgan didn't leave. He sat by him quietly, patiently, and Spencer fiddled with the cards. No one had ever taught him how to ask for help, and he didn't know how to say it.

"It's the crime scene photos," he said instead.

"Crime scene photos?"

Morgan was kind, Morgan was gentle, Morgan was patient, but _Morgan didn't understand._ "The dead girls in the leaves," he said, his throat dry.

_Wet leaves rotting in a Georgia graveyard, the smell sickly sweet and cloying, the red clay clinging to his fingers, the blood and sweat dripping down his body as his hands swelled and burst with blisters while he dug his own grave._

Morgan shook his head, his brow drawing in mild confusion. "Reid, we've seen worse," he said.

"I know," he whispered. "I know we've seen worse, but... for the first time, I know." He looked up, "I look at them, and…"

_His heart beating too fast in his chest, his racing blood too hot and too loud in his ears, his last goodbyes swallowed down his throat with his tears because he'd never be able to say them out loud-_

"I look at them and I... I know what they were thinking. And I know what they were feeling, like, _right before_."

Morgan nodded as if he understood. "That's called empathy," he said gently. "And it's a good thing."

It wasn't empathy. It wasn't. Empathy was Hotch sitting down with a missing child's father. Empathy was JJ speaking in her kind brave voice on behalf of a victim. It was Emily never breaking during an interrogation because her work would bring justice to a grieving family. It was Garcia watching kitten videos after a bad case, Gideon arranging framed photos in his office, Elle stepping away because her heart couldn't take it anymore.

Empathy was Morgan sitting him down on the jet and inviting him to speak.

Except he didn't want an invitation to speak, it was past that point, he was drowning and he wanted someone to take him by the wrists and pull him out of the ice cold water and let him heave and suffer and cry until he could breathe again, feel again.

_Nobody heard him, the dead man, but still he lay moaning_

He couldn't feel empathy. He couldn't feel it when he didn't deserve any empathy.

_The click of the empty chamber, over and over and over again, until the gun fired, muzzle bright in the midnight, but the gun wasn't pointed at him, it was pointed at the man who tried to kill him, but it wasn't the man who tried to kill him, it was a boy not too much older than him, a boy who asked if he might see his mother again, and he didn't answer him in time._

He pushed his hair back from his hot forehead, dug his fingertips against his bone-dry eyes. "It's _not_ ," he said desperately. "It's got me all messed up. I don't know how to focus. I can't do my job as well."

_I was much further out than you thought, and not waving, but drowning_

"So, what do I do?"

"You use it," Morgan said, and Spencer's heart sank. _He didn't understand._ "Let it make you a better profiler, a better person."

_It must have been too cold for him, his heart gave way, they said- oh, no no no, it was too cold always_

Spencer smiled, but there was no joy in it. He didn't think he could feel joy again. "A better person," he echoed.

Morgan smiled at him, warm and encouraging, and Spencer turned back to the window.

_I was much too far out all my life, and not waving, but drowning._

He stayed quiet the rest of the flight, his hot forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window, his arms tight around his body in a protective imitation of a hug, and he didn't speak.

He went home alone, to his dark apartment. He took a shower, brushed his teeth. And then he sat cross-legged on his quiet bed and he shot the dilaudid in his arm and for a little while, he didn't feel anything at all.


	2. no, I never made a sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer's addiction makes him angry, and scared, and sick, and he can't break the cycle, and no one knows how to help him. Especially not Emily.

He thought he was handling it. The dilaudid was the only thing that let him slog through the day. He didn't sleep much, or eat much, but he craved the peace the drug gave him. Except the peace wasn't real, and every time it wore off he hurt more and more, so he took the drug more, and then it hurt more.

 _You should quit_ , a little voice reminded him, _before it gets worse_.

But he could balance things, and he could handle work, and it was fine, and he was fine.

And besides, it wasn't like anyone could figure out what was wrong with him. He could have been waving a banner in front of their faces and they would never say it just right, never say anything past a mild _are you okay_ or _you can always talk to me._

He wanted to tell them, but he wanted them to ask the correct questions.

_If they really cared, they would know. And they don't know, so they must not care enough._

He slept little, waking up from nightmares that he couldn't remember but terrified him enough to keep him from falling back asleep. Sometimes he could force himself into a light doze, but some times he stared up at the ceiling until his alarm went off.

The worst was the morning that he did fall back asleep and his alarm didn't go off and he cycled through another nightmare, waking up shaken and weak and craving the dilaudid to take the edge off, but sunlight was filtering through the curtains, and it was either be late for work, or take a hit and be incredibly late for work, so he tucked the remaining bottle in the bottom of his bag.

He stumbled through getting dressed and grabbing his things; traffic wasn't terrible and he might not be too late. Hopefully there wouldn't be a case and he could sneak into the bullpen without being noticed. He stopped at the break area on the way in to make himself coffee, hoping the caffeine would shake the last cobwebs from his brain.

"Dr. Reid, I think your team is in the conference room."

He rolled his eyes. Of course they were. He grabbed his coffee mug and slunk into the room. JJ paused in her presentation and he could feel their eyes tracking him as he walked silently to the empty seat and threw himself down.

JJ cleared her throat. "The ward's detectives are inundated with homicides," she continued. "Gang violence is a big problem…"

He squirmed in his seat, slouching as he tried to get comfortable. There was an ever-present prickle in his skin, and he didn't want to be there, not if they were all going to stare at him and exchange glances over his head like he was a child, pretending he couldn't see them. He could, and he dared them to say something.

"We have no evidence, no apparent interaction between the unsub and the victims pre- or postmortem, and an indistinguishable MO," he said, his lips twisting. "Should be simple."

"Wheels up in thirty," Hotch said. "Reid. Can you stay here a moment?"

He sighed, slouching farther in his chair as the rest of the team filed out of the room. Hotch closed the door. "I'm sorry I was late, the train was delayed…" he began.

Hotch sat down across from him. "Are you feeling all right?" he asked.

Spencer blinked. "Yeah."

"Your behavior has been extremely out of character recently," Hotch said. "Is there anything you'd like to talk about?"

He shrugged. "Not particularly."

Hotch rested his clasped hands on the table. "I got in contact with the department counselor you've supposedly been seeing," he said. "You haven't checked in once."

"We've been a little busy," Spencer said. "I'll...make an appointment when we get back from Houston."

"You also haven't submitted your report for the Hankel case," Hotch said. The sharpness in his eyes softened. "I told you I would give you time, but we're coming up on two months. If you're still not able to write it-"

"I'll write it when we get back," Spencer said, harsher than he intended. "I just...keep forgetting."

It was a stupid lie and he knew it. "You're not the kind of person to forget anything," Hotch said. "Listen, Spencer...if there's something you'd like to talk about, something that would be easier to discuss with a team member than a stranger-"

Another agent knocked hesitantly on the door. "Agent Hotchner? Chief Strauss wants to see you before you fly out."

"We can talk about this later," Hotch said, gathering up his things. "Anything you need to talk about, Reid...we're not going to judge you."

_I can't function without drugs, and even with the drugs I'm falling apart, and I can't tell you that, I can't, I just can't._

"Thanks, Hotch, I'll keep that in mind," he said, and he slipped out of the conference to get his go bag.

He chose to sit on the bench seat on the jet, legs crossed tightly, his back pushed against the wall, scrunching himself smaller. He balanced a notepad on his knee and twiddled a pen in his fingers; his shirt cuff was long enough to slip past his wrists but he didn't bother to push it back. The more hidden the better.

He focused on the conversation, waiting to find a moment to chime in. They were used to him rambling, better to ramble than be silent. "He used blitz attacks, which means he most likely lacks the interpersonal skills needed to coerce his victims into coming close," he said, bouncing the pen in his fingers. "And he also used the element of surprise, which means he may have stalked his victims prior to killing them."

"Well, if that's the case, I want to go to the last crime scene to see where he may have been hiding," Morgan said.

Gideon nodded. "I want to see the neighborhood for myself. I'll go with you."

"Good," Hotch said. "The rest of us will go to the precinct and set up shop."

"I'll map out the area and see if I can find any places the victims would have visited in the neighborhood," Spencer offered.

"Good, maybe we can find a connection between them," Emily said. "I'll help you with that."

"I can handle it," he said sharply. He didn't want Prentiss there, he didn't need her there. He didn't want any of them there.

Emily blinked. He could sense Morgan looking at him too, eyebrows raised. "I wasn't suggesting that you couldn't," she said.

"You know what 'I'll help you with it' means?" he retorted.

"Reid," Hotch warned. He shrugged, feigning innocence. "Prentiss will help you with the geographical profiling and victimology."

This was Hotch threatening to turn the car around and go home. Spencer's lip dropped in a pout. "Fine," he said, snotty like a teenager sent to his room.

The jet was uncomfortably silent. He glanced up under his lashes from the corner of his eye- Emily staring down at the floor, JJ exchanging a worried look over her coffee cup at Morgan, Hotch and Gideon watching him with those scrutinizing profiler gazes.

"Remember, this is a high crime area," Hotch said, frowning directly at him. "Be vigilant. Nobody goes anywhere alone."

That last bit was directed at him, he knew it, but he chose to busy himself with his notepad, writing down something useless to make himself look busy.

He gave the rest of the team a wide berth as they settled into the precinct. The station was in the center of a construction zone; he couldn't escape the sounds of machinery or the dust kicked up in the warm late spring air. Someone had left a window open, making it a million times worse, but didn't want to pick a fight with strangers around. He busied himself with the map, making neat red lines on the grayscale page. Emily couldn't help him with this, no one could help him with this, and he took pride in that. But he could sense her staring behind him, keeping a safe distance as she watched him trace routes with his fingertips.

"One of the detectives' wives made us cookies," JJ said, her mouth half full, and she held up a plate covered in plastic wrap.

"Wow, homemade cookies?"

"Yeah, I guess that's what they mean by southern hospitality," JJ said, dragging her voice in an exaggerated drawl.

Spencer scowled. "What are you saying?"

"Southern hospitality!" Emily said, raising her voice over the roar of the construction outside.

His scowl deepened. "I need to concentrate," he said, and he slammed the window shut. It helped, but not much. "How can anybody hear with all this work going on?"

"Well, you're gonna have to get used to it," JJ said as she picked up another cookie. "Construction crews are working around the clock."

"Saw it on the way in," Emily added.

"The city's trying to return to its splendor, and that means that Houston's poorest are being kicked out of their homes," JJ said.

Gideon, Morgan, and Hotch walked into the conference room with the local detective, all four of them frowning. That wasn't a good sign. "Unsub might be homeless," Gideon said shortly. "Appears to have been living in a building next to where the security guard was attacked."

He approached the map and Spencer hovered over his shoulder. "These are the locations of the last three murders, all near abandoned buildings," he said.

"He knows the neighborhood, maybe he was recently displaced," Hotch suggested.

"Could be a motive," Emily said. "Construction worker, security guard at a construction site. Payback?"

"What about the homeless man?" Morgan countered.

"We get a lot of beefs down there among the homeless," the local detective said. "That one could have just been a fight about space or food."

Gideon's frown deepened, grim and thoughtful. "Let's get a list of residents who've been kicked out of their homes by the gentrification," he said. He nodded towards Emily. "You and Reid check the shelters?"

She jumped up immediately from her seat. "Yeah, we're on it," she said. She paused. "Unless... you okay with that, Reid?"

He shrugged. "I'm fine with that," he said. He grabbed his bag and followed her out of the office. She already had the keys to one of the department cars in her hand; he followed her without a word.

"I'm so sorry," she said, her hand on the driver's side door handle. "Do you want to drive? I just assumed, you usually don't drive…"

"You can drive," he said tersely, and he climbed into the passenger seat. "Let's go."

Emily didn't turn on any music. It wouldn't have mattered anyway; the deafening construction followed them as she drove. The AC wasn't nearly cold enough in the car but he didn't bother to change it.

The homeless shelter was tucked in between work zones, covered in drywall dust and grime. Emily parked on the street. "Hey," she said, sliding her hands in her pockets as she jogged to keep up with his long strides. "I'm sorry if I've been stepping on your toes lately. I'm not trying to, I was just-"

"Don't worry about it," he said. He waved over a volunteer in a blue tee shirt. "Hi. We need to speak with a shelter director. Are they available?"

"Yeah, she's in the main hall," the volunteer said; he offered a half smile in thanks and walked away. He heard Emily sigh behind him.

The shelter smelled like a thousand meals and mildew, a church basement kind of smell, and it was busy, filled with dozens of bodies and the buzz of a hundred conversations. Spencer willed his brain to focus.

A thin woman in a blue apron waved them over. "You all are looking for someone in charge?" she said, fluttery and anxious. "I'm Angie, one of the administrators."

"Hi. I'm Agent Prentiss, this is Agent Reid," Emily said, reaching out to shake her hand. He pressed his mouth together. She was the only one on the team who didn't introduce him as Dr. Reid. "We're with the FBI."

"Really?" Angie said, eyes going wide.

"Really," he said. He stuck his hands deep in his pockets, and Angie seemed caught off guard by his response. The smell in the room was hot and stifling; his brain was trying to pick up on every conversation around him like a hotwired radio antenna.

"It looks like you have your hands full," Emily said.

Angie sighed. "With the demolitions in the projects and the abandoned buildings, there's no place else for people to sleep," she said.

"Well, thank god there are people like you who take the time-" Emily started to say.

"Do you have a list of everyone who comes through here?" Spencer interrupted.

Emily frowned. "Uh, we have a sign in sheet, but we don't force anyone to sign if they don't want to," Angie said. "Some who don't even use their real names. Elvis eats here a lot."

"We would appreciate any lists you have," Emily said.

"Why?"

"Have you noticed anyone who acts unusually aggressive towards the other residents?" he asked.

"What's this about?" Angie asked skeptically.

"A series of murders in the area. The perpetrator may be a homeless man," he said. There wasn't enough air in the room; it felt thick and stagnant around him. "Maybe someone who stays here. He may even be in this room as we speak."

"God, Reid," Emily said, startled.

He ignored her. "Have you noticed anyone who acts paranoid or displays explosive, unprovoked bursts of violence, more than just pushing and shoving? I mean, someone who really tries to harm others."

Angie had gone pale, scanning nervously around the room. "There are territorial fights over food and places to sleep. The nurse treats people for minor injuries all the time, but no one's seriously hurt."

He pulled a card out of his pocket. "If anyone does come to mind, give us a call," he said. "Thank you."

She took the card and he turned on his heel, speedwalking out the door. He relaxed for a split second, because the air outside moved around him a gentle breeze and he couldn't smell day-old peanut butter and jelly sandwiches again, but the construction was worse than ever, jackhammering at the base of his neck.

A man in dirty clothes limped by him, coughing. Spencer crossed his arms over his chest. The heavy doors slammed open; Emily held them long enough for the man to hobble inside. "There's a high presence of mental disorders with the homeless," he remarked.

"Yeah," Emily said flatly. "What the hell was that in there?"

He squinted. "What?"

Emily huffed. "'He may even be in this room as we speak'? We have nothing to support that!"

"We're investigating a serial homicide. Should I have pretended there's no danger?"

"We just left that woman potentially afraid of every man who walks into this shelter," she said.

He tightened his arms across his chest. "Again, until we find this unsub, how is that a bad thing?" he said.

She recoiled. "What is the matter with you?" she said.

The back of his neck prickled. "What do you mean, what's the matter with me?" he retorted.

"I have never seen you act like this," she said.

There was no warm protectiveness like he got from JJ or Morgan, no stern parental sense like he got from Hotch, just pure irritation and frustration. He hated it. What right did she have? "Oh, really?" he snapped. "Oh, in the months that you know me, you've never seen me act this way? Hey, no offense, Emily, but…... you don't really know what you're talking about, do you?"

He stomped back to the car, knowing he was being childish, knowing that Emily was right and he hadn't handled that conversation well, knowing it was going to be an awkward afternoon sitting in the car with her and her hurt feelings, but he didn't care. He didn't care about anything.

* * *

The rest of the afternoon was painfully uncomfortable. Emily drove to a couple more local shelters in complete silence while Reid slouched in the passenger seat like a teenager who'd been told he was grounded from the prom. He said little during interviews; what he did say was flat and nearly useless, leaving her to handle most of it.

She thought about a couple of things she might say that might smooth things over, but none of them seemed like they would pan out very well. Reid was right. She'd only known him for a few months, and he'd just gone through major trauma. It wasn't her place to say anything to him.

She parked at the precinct and Reid was out of the car before she'd taken the key out of the ignition. It didn't take a profiler to see that something was wrong- he was pale, agitated, stressed to the point that he couldn't stop fidgeting. But there was nothing useful she could do or say.

Hotch was waiting for them in the lobby. "Just got back from the local homeless shelter," Reid said immediately, catching up alongside him. "The administrator hasn't noticed anyone new displaying aggressive behavior-"

"He's not in a homeless shelter," Hotch said. "I just talked to Gideon and Morgan. They think that he's killing to protect some makeshift shelter of his own."

"So are we ready for a profile yet?" Reid asked.

"We're missing something," Hotch said. "How did this homeless man learn to kill so efficiently?"

"You know what we need?" Emily said.

"We need to get lucky. We need him to make a mistake." Hotch eyed them up and down. "Reid, I want you to work with me and Morgan. Emily, I want you to work JJ, she's getting information from Garcia about people reported missing in the area."

Emily nodded. She hated that she was relieved to not be paired with Reid, but she was. "Where is she?"

"Conference room."

She found JJ surrounded by missing posters, leaning forward on her crossed arms and frowning at the stacks. "Hotch sent me to help you," she said.

"Good," JJ sighed. "Garcia's trying to narrow it down, but there's a lot of people reported missing within a hundred mile radius. And he might not even be missing at that."

"Well, I'll see what I can do to help," Emily grinned.

She set to work, quickly falling into the rhythm JJ had started. They chatted idly here and there, with long silences as they read over reports, and Emily debated if she should ask JJ about Reid or not. Maybe it wasn't her place.

"Hey, JJ?" she ventured. JJ made a noncommittal noise. "I've been meaning to ask you something."

"Hm? About what?"

"It's just that, especially lately, I've been worried about-"

But she didn't get a chance to finish her sentence, because a bleeding man and his crying daughter burst into the station and there was mass chaos, and Reid's attitude problems were the least of her worries.

The knots began to untangle- they were looking for a war veteran. "Let's get Morgan and Gideon on a call, they're still checking out scenes," Hotch said. Emily cradled her coffee cup in both hands and waited for the dial tone as JJ sat down on the edge of the table. Reid paced, his arms crossed over his chest.

Hotch got Morgan and Gideon caught up quickly. "It makes sense he's a war veteran," Morgan asked. "The quick strikes are consistent with trained military."

"He must have served in a place that looked or sounded like this ward," Emily said.

"Well, we were right about him being homeless, in a sense," Gideon said, his voice faraway over the phone. "Wherever he is, in his mental state, he's certainly not at home."

Hotch frowned. "He may not even be aware he's killing."

"Now, how's that?"

"When soldiers suffered from anxiety, depression, and flashbacks in World War I, it was called shell shock. In World War II, battle fatigue," Reid interrupted. "Now we refer to it as PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A side effect of which is slipping into disassociative states."

"The mind divorces itself from reality so it can cope with the trauma," Emily said slowly.

She watched Reid out of the corner of her eye. "He's reliving a memory. He's trapped in his head in some war zone," Gideon said.

"Hiding and defending himself from the enemy," Morgan added.

"Okay, so how do we find a man who's trapped inside his head?" JJ asked.

"He's got a wedding ring," Emily said. "Someone's missing him."

Static crackled over the speakerphone. "Good," Gideon said. "I'm on the way in with Detective Fuller. Morgan has the last crime scene to check."

The call ended unceremoniously. "JJ, check missing persons reports, see if anyone matches the description," Hotch said. "It would have been filed recently, the last two or three days."

"I'm on it," she said, sliding down from the table. "I was looking through them earlier, but that's a much more narrow field."

"I'll go with you," Emily offered quickly.

"That's fine," Hotch said. "Reid, I want you to stay with me and work on the profile."

Emily followed JJ out of the conference room and back to the desk still stacked with missing persons' reports. "God, we'll have to sort back through all of these," JJ sighed. "Just what I want to do at-" she checked her watch- "one in the morning."

"You need any coffee or anything?" Emily asked.

"No, I'll be okay," she said. She handed over a stack of manila folders. "Here, let's start just by weeding out everyone that doesn't match the profile. We can send the names to Garcia to check for a military background."

"Sounds like a plan."

JJ started sorting through her own piles, ruthlessly dividing them up. "Oh, by the way," she said. "You were saying something a while earlier, something you were worried about. Still have that question?"

"Hm?" Emily said. She paused. "Oh, yeah, it's...it was about Reid, but it's fine."

JJ sighed. "He's been something else today, hasn't he?" she said.

"He was, uh….kind of a nightmare earlier," Emily admitted, then stopped. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean that. I know he's going through a lot-"

"I get it," JJ said.

"It's not just me, though, is it- this is really out of character for him?"

"Oh, definitely," JJ said. "I've seen him get upset, and frustrated, especially when he's tired, but...showing up late for work, snapping at everyone, that's not like him at all. And he keeps... just zoning out. It's like he's there, but he's not."

Emily set a report aside thoughtfully. "He was describing the symptoms of PTSD," she said. "Do you think he was just describing himself?"

"It was pretty on the nose," JJ said. "PTSD after he went through is completely understandable. But...knowing Spence, he's not going to ask for any help."

"Should...should we do something about it?" Emily asked.

JJ was silent for a moment. "I'm not sure what to do," she confessed. "We all care about him and we want to help, and he knows that. I don't think any of us know exactly how to help him, unless he tells us. And knowing Spence, he won't say anything until it's too late." She straightened a stack of papers. "Hopefully we can catch him before that happens."

* * *

Spencer stared at the cup of coffee in his hands. It was a little past five in the morning. He hadn't eaten. He hadn't slept. And he hadn't taken anything in twenty-four hours...no...thirty hours...no...thirty-two hours.

He couldn't even count right.

They'd tracked down the unsub's family and they were supposed to get to the station at any moment. He needed to get his head on straight before they got there. He'd been useless, completely useless, on this case. If they'd left him behind in Quantico it wouldn't have made a difference.

The bottle of dilaudid was well hidden in the bottom of his bag and there was probably enough time to grab it and take a hit in the bathroom before anyone noticed he slipped away. But he needed to stop, and he could stop now. He just needed to push through it, and focus, and when he got home he'd get rid of everything and it would be like it never happened.

"Hey, Reid?" His head shot up. Gideon leaned in the room. "The family's here. You ready?"

"Uh-huh," he said, nearly spilling his coffee in his haste. His hands were shaking and he couldn't stop them. "Just...just a second."

Gideon waited for him patiently. "Are you feeling all right?" he asked. "You haven't seemed like yourself lately."

"I'm fine, I just...didn't have enough coffee today," he said.

Gideon didn't press the issue, thankfully, and he took a seat in the back of the room, holding onto his coffee with both hands. A headache pulsed at his temples but he breathed slowly, focusing on the conversation and what he could add to it.

It certainly seemed like Roy Woodbridge could be their unsub from what his wife and his best friend were describing. "Let me ask you this…" he said. "Does he display any sort of, uh...behavioral tics. Certain everyday things that make him jumpy or startled?"

The wife blinked. "Why?"

"Does he?"

She looked around hesitantly at the rest of the team. "Is this going to help find him?"

"Mrs. Woodridge, please," Emily said gently. "We need to know everything we can about your husband."

Mrs. Woodbridge looked like she wanted to sink into the floor. "We all had a... hard time over there," the friend said. "You know...you bring some things home with you."

"Like what?" Hotch asked.

Max hesitated. "He has a hard time with loud noises," Mrs. Woodbridge said, staring at the table. "He can't be in crowds. He has nightmares and wakes up in cold sweats. The smells are the worst. He...if he smells something burning, like a barbecue or gas or fire...he gets sick. It really only got bad about a year ago."

"What happened to him in Somalia?" Gideon asked

"Nothing," Max shrugged. "Combat happened."

Gideon paused, slow and deliberate. "What does that mean?"

Max was silent for a moment, then got up from the table abruptly. "I'm gonna get a drink of water," he said. Hotch and Gideon exchanged a knowing look; Gideon followed him out of the room.

Mrs. Woodbridge seemed rattled, pressing her fingers to her lips. Hotch silently poured her a glass of water. "Could somebody please tell me what's going on?" she asked.

"There have been some people hurt recently, and we think that there may be someone lost on the streets. Someone who thinks that he's still at war," Hotch said. Spencer could hear the softening language in his voice; he was trying to shelter her from the gory truth.

She shook her head. "But Roy would never hurt innocent people," she protested. No one spoke. Spencer kept his arms tight across his chest, hiding his shaking hands. "Well, why would he even be in this neighborhood?"

Luckily the phone rang before anyone had to say anything and JJ pressed the speaker button. "Hey, Garcia," she said. "We have Mrs. Woodridge here with us."

"Oh," Garcia said, sounding flustered. "Uh, well….I found an '02 white Ford F150 pickup truck."

"Oh, my god," Mrs. Woodbridge said. "That's his truck."

"It was impounded," Garcia said. It sounded like she was trying to pick her words carefully, but unlike Hotch, she probably wasn't going to be successful. "Uh, it had a flat tire and was picked up on Lyon Street about a quarter of a mile from Highway 59."

"He takes the East Tex Freeway to work every day."

"Mrs. Woodridge, I'm very sorry... but this is definitely your husband," Emily said. The woman's face crumpled.

Things moved fast after that. Spencer stayed out of the way, under the radar, hiding with his maps. Everyone else was busy and distracted, and he didn't mind. If everyone else was distracted, it was easier to keep them from noticing.

It wasn't _real_ withdrawal, he told himself. There was no way he had been using long enough to go through withdrawal. But he wasn't going to go back and take any. He wasn't. He was done.

They called out the SWAT team, and he assumed he'd be left behind again, but to his surprise Hotch handed him his flak vest. "I want you and Prentiss to help secure the scene," he said. "They're already setting up a perimeter a couple of blocks away, close to the river."

"Yes, sir," Spencer said, even though it took multiple tries to fasten the vest because his damn hands wouldn't stop shaking.

He sat in the back of the SUV, resisting the urge to press his hands over his ears at the shriek of the sirens. His headache twisted behind his eyes like a clamp; the ibuprofen he'd snuck from the precinct's sorry excuse for a first aid kit did nothing to ease the pressure. He was at forty...forty-three hours since his previous dose. His last dose.

He climbed out of the SUV, closing his eyes against the bright late-morning sunshine. Emily was already chatting with the lead officer on the scene, her hands on her hips, and he started to cross the cracked pavement towards her. He could hear sirens wailing over the roar and clang of construction and smell the sharp scent of riverwater and something heavy and hot that seemed familiar and strange all at once; the glare of the sun and spiraling emergency lights blinded him. God, he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and pull the covers over his head, but Emily was already spitting instructions at him. "..we're in communication with SWAT on the scene, most likely we'll-"

He froze. Emily's voice and the sirens and the ever-present crash of construction blurred in his ears and his vision went white.

"Hey, Reid, we're going to block off the street here, but the lot behind us shouldn't be an issue. It's just the truckyard for a fish processing plant and we've already talked to the managers, they're making sure all their employees are staying inside until the situation is resolved-"

Fish. Burning fish.

_They're burning fish hearts and livers. Keeps away the devil._

Emily was still talking but he didn't hear anything. He was lost, sinking fast.

_It was so cold in the cabin and his hands were like ice but the rest of him was fever bright, smoke soaked into his throat and his clothes were damp with sweat and his dry lips tasted like blood and the air smelled like rotten fish and flames-_

"Reid?"

_The fish was supposed to keep the devil away but the devil was here, the devil was here and there was no one coming to save him, no one would find him-_

"Reid?"

_He was going to die here, and they wouldn't find him till it was too late, and he would be trapped here in this frozen cabin, surrounded by the smell of burning fish-_

"Reid!"

He jerked like he'd been electrocuted. "Hm?" he said, his voice garbled.

Emily searched his face. "You look like you've seen a ghost," she said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he choked out. He was going to be sick, he could feel the saliva pooling in the back of his mouth. "F-fine."

She turned back to her conversation with the officer, but he could feel her watching him out of the corner of her eye. "We don't think he'll get out this far, but with SWAT and helicopters on the scene we need to keep the area clear," she said. "The man in question is a war veteran that we believe is suffering delusions as a complication of PTSD…"

His ears roared.

_The mind divorces itself from reality so it can cope with the trauma_

_Does he display any sort of, uh...behavioral tics. Certain everyday things that make him jumpy or startled?_

_He has a hard time with loud noises. He can't be in crowds. He has nightmares and wakes up in cold sweats. The smells are the worst. He...if he smells something burning, like a barbecue or gas or fire...he gets sick._

"Reid, come on, they need us over here."

And Spencer obeyed. Spencer did what he was told, because Spencer wasn't there.

* * *

Emily leaned as far back in her chair as she could. It wasn't that she had been expecting the case to have a happy ending, but it still shocked her. Maybe it was a good thing that she could still be shocked in her line of work.

Reid sat on the far side of the room, huddled in a chair, his flak vest heaped on the floor at his feet. As frustrated as she'd been with him over the past day and a half, she'd rather have him snapping at her than his terrible silence. He'd gone pale and quiet as soon as he got out of the car at the scene and he'd barely spoken since. She wished someone else was there to talk to him, but JJ was taking Mrs. Woodbridge to the hospital and Gideon and Hotch were still on the scene. Maybe Morgan would be back soon.

She couldn't keep sitting with nothing to do, so she pushed herself up and started setting the room back to order, taking down photos and lists and Reid's maps. They didn't need it anymore.

She dropped a pile of glossy eight-by-tens and Reid jumped. "Sorry, sorry," she said. "I didn't realize it would be so loud."

He didn't acknowledge her. His eyes were glassy and far too bright.

"Hey," she said tentatively, fiddling with the stack of photos until the edges were perfectly aligned. "I know...we're not super close, but...did something happen? Because you can talk to me if something did." He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth, still not making eye contact. "It seemed like something happened when we got to the scene earlier. I've never-"

Reid bolted. He ran out of the room, nearly knocking the table over in his haste. She stared after him in confusion. "Reid?" she called.

Out of all the reactions she'd been expecting, this was completely off her radar. She followed him hesitantly. "Reid, if you don't want to talk to me, it's fine, I get it, but I hope you're not angry with me because-"

Her voice trailed off midsentence. The bathroom door was half open and she could hear the unmistakable sound of retching.

Emily recoiled. She did _not do_ vomit. Bodies at a crime scene or a morgue, fine. Blood, fine. Virtually any other bodily fluid, (probably) fine. She _did not do vomit._

But she could hear Reid hacking and coughing, his breaths coming in desperate gasps, and she pushed the door open the rest of the way.

Any misgivings she had flew out the window. "Holy _shit,_ Reid," she said, kneeling on the cold tile floor beside him. He was half collapsed, his arms visibly shaking as he tried to hold himself up against the toilet. "Hey, calm down. Calm down, take a breath."

She placed her hand on his back, hoping the weight would reassure him somehow, and she could feel every bump in his spine through his shirt. Worry spiked in her chest. Reid was thin, was thin long before Georgia, but she hadn't noticed he was _this_ thin.

He was dry heaving now, nothing left in his system to bring back up, and she waited until he was a little calmer, a little quieter. "What's wrong?" she asked gently. "Are you sick?"

He pushed down on the handle and leaned back stiffly against the wall. His face was mottled white with red splotches on his cheekbones and his eyes were watering. "It was the same," he mumbled.

She wrinkled her nose. "What?" His head dropped in a drunken tilt. "Hey, hold on, look at me." He cracked open one eye. "What was the same?"

"The fish," he slurred. "They burned it...keep the devils away."

"I don't understand," she said, frustrated. "What about the devils?"

Suddenly Reid's eyes went blank, blinking too rapidly, his long lashes dark against the pallor of his skin. His shoulders sagged and the fingers of his left hand curled into a fist, unclenched, clenched again.

"Reid?" she said hesitantly. The fast blinking unnerved her, sent adrenaline pumping in her veins. Something was wrong. His hair drooped over his forehead and without thinking she smoothed it back. His skin was like ice. "Spencer?"

His head jerked sharply, but when he looked up he blinked slowly, staring at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. He swallowed hard and mumbled something under his breath.

"Spencer, who was keeping the devils away?" she pressed. "Who was burning-"

Her mouth tightened, and then it hit her. She remembered it too, but differently- remembered that distinct scorched bleach smell in an abandoned cabin, cold air biting at her exposed skin as she stared in horror at the sight of the empty chair and the shining silver handcuffs and Spencer's discarded shoes.

"Oh, my god," she breathed. He closed his eyes, rubbing at his eyes with visibly shaking hands. "Spencer, that's not okay, that's...you said it yourself, that's PTSD and you-"

"Don't tell," he said hoarsely.

She leaned back on her heels. "What?"

"Don't tell," he pleaded. "Don't tell the others. I don't want them to know."

"I won't, I won't, but...Reid, don't you want to tell somebody?" she said. "JJ, or Morgan?"

He shook his head. "They don't need to know," he said.

"Why not?" she asked.

He looked down at his shoes, biting his pale lower lip. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Yeah, sure, anything," she said.

"Can...can you get my bag?" he asked. "It's on the floor under the table."

"Yeah, don't worry," she said. Her legs screamed in rebellion as she got up from the cold floor. "Do you need anything else?"

He shook his head, his damp hair hanging over his eyes. "Just that."

She got the bag from the conference room quickly and handed it over to him. His eyes still had that horrible faraway look. "Thanks," he said. "I...I just need a minute."

"Sure," she said. He looked like a dropped doll sitting on the floor like that, his long legs splayed out and his chin tilting towards his chest. "Call me if you need anything, okay?"

He nodded and she slipped out of the bathroom and back to the conference room. She was rattled, and she couldn't put her finger on exactly why. The day before he'd swung from angry and argumentative to sullen and petulant, and now he was silent and distant and puking his guts out.

"Hey," a familiar voice said, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Shit, Morgan, you scared me," she sighed. "You just get back?"

"Yeah, Hotch and Gideon should be here soon too," he said.

Emily sank down in a chair and pushed her hair back. "Then we're just waiting on JJ, I guess, she's with the widow at the hospital," she said.

Morgan frowned. "Where's the kid?"

"Oh, he's…" She paused. "In the bathroom."

"He doing okay?" Morgan asked quietly. "I've been worried about him."

Emily jumped up and went back to pulling pieces down from the board. "He's...I mean, no different then how he's been acting lately, I guess," she said. She was usually good at keeping a cover story but damn, all she wanted was to blurt out what had just happened and let Morgan step in and fix it.

Morgan exhaled through his teeth. "He needs to talk to somebody," he said. "I had Garcia check, he's supposed to be checking in with the company counselor on a regular basis. He hasn't gone once."

"Is there anything we can do about it?" Emily asked.

He shook his head. "Can't force him to go," he said. "But if he keeps on like this, acting out and not talking, he's going hit rock bottom fast." Emily slid the photographs into an envelope and closed the tabs. She didn't know what to say.

Reid walked in the room, slow and shuffling, his bag over his shoulder and his fingers holding tight to the straps. "Hey, pretty boy," Morgan said. "How's it going?"

Reid eased into a chair as if his legs had forgotten how to bend properly. "Are we leaving soon?" he asked, almost dreamily. The color had come back to his face but his cheeks were too flushed now.

"Yeah, kid, we're just waiting for the others," Morgan said. "Not too much longer."

Emily watched Reid out of the corner of her eye as she erased the whiteboard. He curled up in his chair like a child, drawing one knee up to his chest, and closed his eyes. She thought of him crumpled on the floor, begging her not to tell, and it would be so easy to turn and tell Morgan the truth, but any trust that Reid had in her was fragile, and she wasn't sure if she was ready to break that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy. More Spencer suffering.
> 
> It's so interesting to delve into all the addiction stuff that we didn't see in the show. There's SO many gaps in this plotline. So many. I have one more chapter about the addiction arc, and then withdrawal, so please send me all your headcanons! I love hearing y'alls thoughts. You can even prompt things if you'd like!
> 
> Also, Spencer definitely had a seizure in front of Emily and she didn't notice. Because guess what's a symptom of dilaudid withdrawal? Seizures. 
> 
> Thank you so much for all your kudos and comments, and an extra special thanks to expecto-weasleys on tumblr for beta'ing! 
> 
> I'm always up for chatting in the comments or on my tumblr (themetaphorgirl) and if you have prompts you'd like to see filled (especially if they're Spencer centric, or there's dad!Hotch or bigbrother!Morgan or bigsister!JJ or mom!Blake, or there's little kid Spencer) I'd love to write a little something!
> 
> Up next: he was faded around the edges, he didn't recognize himself anymore, but he couldn't break the cycle


	3. it's like I never made a sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'll quit soon. He will. He's just...not ready yet.

Morgan frowned at the case file open on his knees. "Reid, what do you think about-"

He paused. Reid was lost in thought, his forehead scrunched and his chin resting on his hand. The youngest team member had been suspiciously quiet and dazed during roundtable and completely silent when they boarded the plane. A few months ago he would have thought his behavior was strange. Now it seemed normal. But that didn't mean he had to like it.

"Hey, Reid," he said again. "What's goin' on up there?"

Reid's solemn frown deepened. "I was just thinking of this old friend of mine from Las Vegas...Ethan," he said. "I'm pretty sure he lives in New Orleans now."

"Really?" Morgan said. He could count on two hands the number of times Reid talked about his mother; he couldn't remember Spencer ever talking about friends. "Gonna give him a call?"

Reid shrugged. "We grew up competing against each other in absolutely everything. Spelling bees, science fairs," he said. "We also both had our hearts set on joining the bureau, but...first day at Quantico he backed out."

"He probably just couldn't take the heat," Prentiss chimed in with a little grin.

"It's not really for us to judge, is it?" Reid shot back.

Her smile faded quickly. "Right," she said. "My bad."

Morgan felt a little sorry for her. Prentiss had been attempting to win Reid over for weeks, but more often than not she ended up on the receiving end of his temper tantrums. At least when Reid had the energy to snap back. Lately he just stayed silent.

JJ, as if she hadn't heard what had just happened (but they all did, the plane wasn't large enough for secrets) started handing out fax pages to each team member. "These are copies of the newspaper articles on the murders, dating back to early August 2005," she said. "It's all we have to go on."

They discussed the case for most of the flight, talking over theories. Morgan kept a close eye on Reid; he had plenty to add and his voice sounded more clear and coherent than he had in a while, but he was pale and his eyes were ringed with dark circles. He wasn't sure what the hotel situation was going to be in New Orleans, but he had half a mind to room with Reid just to make sure the kid got some sleep for once.

It was cold on the jet, as always, but an hour or two before they landed Reid took off his heavy cardigan. Morgan had noticed that he'd taken to wearing bulky sweaters- today's example was a particularly ugly brown with a green stripe- but despite the chilled recycled air, a flush had risen on his high cheekbones and sweat clustered at his hairline. How was he possibly getting overheated at a time like this?

Hotch checked his watch as the jet began its descent. "I'll get set up at the precinct," he said. "Prentiss, Reid, I want the two of you to go to the morgue and talk to the ME."

"I'll go with Reid," Morgan said.

"No, I want you to go with Gideon and JJ to the initial crime scene," he said.

 _He's not gonna do well with Prentiss,_ he thought. _He's already miserable, and he's just going to make her miserable, and maybe if I can get the kid alone for once I can drag more than two words out of him._

"Fine," he said aloud. It wasn't worth picking a fight with Hotch, especially not publicly, _especially_ not in front of the kid. He'd just have to try to talk to him alone some other time.

Humidity collided like a freight train as he stepped out of the jet. "Holy shit," he said. "It's only June and it feels like this?"

JJ tied her hair up in a ponytail as she jogged to keep up with him. "Yeah, welcome to Louisiana," she said. "Everybody, remember to drink water."

Hotch strode ahead to talk to the PD representative waiting for them on the tarmac. Morgan slowed his pace. Reid was several steps behind, struggling to put his cardigan back on. "You really need that out here?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm cold," Reid snapped, wrestling with the heavy sleeves.

"It's like ninety degrees and humid as fuck," Morgan said. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, and I'm not a child."

Morgan bit back his reply, waiting for Reid to button up his sweater. "I know you're not a child," he said quietly. "But god knows you've been doing a shit job of taking care of yourself. You're running yourself into the ground."

Reid dropped his arms and huffed, glaring at him. "Are you done yet?" he asked, exasperated.

"Yeah," Morgan said. "Good luck at the morgue. Don't bite Prentiss's head off. You know she means well."

"Like you?" Reid shot back, and he slung his bag over his shoulder and stalked away.

Morgan watched him go, his shoulders hunched up to his ears. He didn't know what to do with him. It seemed like no matter what he said to Spencer, it was always the wrong thing, and all he was doing was pushing him farther and farther away.

* * *

"You're sure?" Spencer repeated.

"Go," Hotch said. "We can deliver the profile without you. There's not much we can do until the ME processes the body. When do you think you'll be back?"

Spencer shrugged. "An hour or two?" he said. "Ethan works pretty close to here."

"Then go," Hotch said. "Keep me updated if anything holds you up." He squeezed Spencer's upper arm lightly, a rare affectionate gesture. "Stay safe."

"I will," he said. "Thanks."

He texted Ethan as he walked away from the yellow-taped crime scene, then dropped his phone in his pocket. There was a coffee shop nearby and he desperately needed caffeine to wake himself up before he had to carry on a conversation.

He ordered a hot americano- extra shot, two pumps of vanilla, six sugars- and clutched it in both hands, letting the warmth seep into his cold skin. Despite the oppressive humidity he was absolutely freezing and his fingers wouldn't stop shaking.

If he was honest, the shaking had started a few weeks ago and hadn't stopped. It started when he ran out of the first bottle, and there was only a little bit left in the second, and he had to find another solution.

They kept asking him if he'd seen a doctor, and at first he only went to get the team off his back, but the doctor asked him if he was still in pain, and he saw an opening, and he gave the right answers, and he was rewarded with a prescription.

Dilaudid in pill form wasn't as effective as an injection, and it certainly wasn't as powerful as Tobias's blend, but it staved off withdrawal and it was a hell of a lot easier to keep hidden than the syringes. And it meant he could save the injectable stuff for when he really, _really_ needed it.

He knew eventually the prescription would run out, and he didn't know what he was going to do when he couldn't get his hands on more. But he had to get more. Going without it wasn't an option. Granted, he didn't feel like himself anymore, and his thoughts were slow and stilted, and nothing seemed to stop him from spiraling farther and farther down, but he _couldn't stop._

He took a cautious sip of boiling-hot coffee and exhaled slowly. His last dose had been just a few hours earlier, right before they left the hotel for the crime scene, and he let himself sink into his painless, thoughtless haze. He kept drinking the coffee, heedless of his tongue burning, and tossed the empty cup.

He heard footsteps in the alleyway behind him and leaned around the corner, grinning. "Jeez!" Ethan exclaimed. "Reid, you scared me."

Ethan was different than he remembered- his face had filled out, and his hair was longer, and he had a beard now- but he still reminded Spencer of the teenager he'd known in high school. "Always been one step ahead of you, man," he said.

"Yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night," Ethan grinned. "I'm glad you called. It's good to see you." Ethan clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's get a drink."

"You know any good places?"

Ethan laughed. "Do I?" he said. "Kid, I've played every bar on the street. Don't worry about it. Come on."

The afternoon passed by faster than he expected, and before long he'd been out for a lot longer than an hour or two. They'd gotten drinks, and then Ethan said he knew a great place he'd like for lunch, and then now they were at the lounge where he worked. It was still only midafternoon so the bar was quiet, just a few couples chatting here and there. Ethan walked straight up to the bar and said something to the girl behind the counter. Spencer hung back.

"Stephanie's great, she'll make something you'll like," Ethan said.

His phone rang and he checked the screen. It was Prentiss calling, which meant it was definitely something work related, which meant he definitely should answer it, but he wasn't about to do that.

Stephanie slid two glasses across the bar. "Thanks," Ethan said. "Hey, Steph, this is Spencer Reid."

"Oh, the eight-year-old who beat you in the ninth grade spelling bee?" she smirked. "Pleasure to meet you."

"Okay, yeah, he spelled me down in ninth grade, but I beat him in the science fair in tenth," Ethan said.

"Only because the judges were biased towards robotics projects," Spencer protested.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night," Ethan said. Stephanie handed him a drink and he slid it over to Spencer. "You still got valedictorian, so there's that." He looked Spencer up and down. "Back then you were so small you had to stand on a box to be seen over the podium. Guess that growth spurt finally hit, huh?"

"Yeah, finally," he echoed. "Right before I got to the academy. Although that still didn't help much."

Ethan snorted. "Yeah, you had to get that FBI guy to pull strings for you to stay," he said. "You were never much for sports and stuff."

His phone rang and he checked it. Still Prentiss. He still wasn't going to answer.

Ethan took a sip of his beer. "Okay. So," he said. "Are you gonna ask the question?"

His lips tugged down and he crossed his arms over his stomach. "What question?"

"Come on, man. It's me here," Ethan said. "We haven't talked to each other in years. I know it's why you called me. Ask the question."

Spencer sighed. "Why did you quit after only one day of FBI training?" he asked.

"Well…" Ethan said slowly. He reached over to pick up his beer. "I'm sure you've considered the evidence...analyzed the signs." He regarded Spencer over the rim. "What's your theory?"

He didn't understand it back then, when he was a starry-eyed child playing grown-up at the academy, but he understood it now. "You were battling your own demons. You didn't have time to analyze someone else's," he said.

Ethan took a sip of his beer. "Not bad, not bad," he said. "Those days, I did prefer Jack Daniels to Jeff Dahmer." He leaned in close enough for Spencer to catch the scent of his cologne, warm and spicy. "They both weigh on your soul eventually."

Ethan's piercing stare made him dizzy. HIs phone rang again and the spell broke. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"The bat phone," Ethan joked, taking another sip of beer.

It was Prentiss again. He closed the phone and this time he turned the ringer to silent. "Let me ask you this, Ethan," he said quietly. "Do you ever regret it?"

Ethan set his drink down. "You know, I may not be changing the world, but...my music makes me happy," he said. "And it doesn't take a profiler to see that you're not."

Spencer blinked in surprise. Ethan strolled away from him and sat down in a comfortable armchair in the lounge. He dropped a tip on the bar for Stephanie, picked up his drink, and followed him. "It's not easy," he said. He had the sudden, irrational urge to defend himself. "And it's not...I...don't think you'd believe some of the things that I've seen."

Ethan lounged in his chair, clearly at ease. "John Coltrane. He was a genius, too," he said. "Died of cancer. But most people think it was the booze and heroin that did him in."

A sudden spike of anxiety shot through his chest. "What are you trying to say?" he said, hunching forward in his chair, trying to sound calm.

"You look like hell," Ethan said quietly.

Spencer shifted his shoulders as he set his drink down. He couldn't make eye contact with him. "I'm fine."

"Come on, man. I'm a jazz musician in New Orleans. I know what it looks like when someone's not well," Ethan said. "This may be the one time I can tell you something that you don't already know. That might help you forget, but it won't make it go away. And if I can tell…"

He leaned forward, his dark eyes focused. Spencer shrank back, his arms wrapped around his stomach. "You're surrounded by some of the best minds in the world, and if you think they don't notice…"

He held out his hand and wobbled it back and forth. Spencer hid his shaking hands against his sides. "Well...for a genius, that's just dumb," Ethan said, leaning back in the chair.

Spencer huddled in the chair like a chastised child. "Is...is it that obvious?" he asked.

"You practically have a neon sign flashing above your head," Ethan snorted. "What is it? Coke?"

He looked down at the patterned carpet. "Dilaudid," he admitted softly. He had never said it aloud before.

"Huh. An unusual choice, but then again, you've never exactly been ordinary," Ethan said. "How'd it start? Get shot in the line of duty and get hooked?"

"Kidnapped and tortured, actually."

Ethan choked on his beer. "Shit, really?" he said. Spencer shrugged. "Damn." He took another sip. "I'd ask what happened, but...you've never been one to talk about your problems."

"No offense, but most people in high school were more concerned about me helping them study or cheating off my test papers to ask about my problems," Spencer said.

Ethan was quiet for a moment. "The goalpost," he said. "You remember the goalpost?"

A shiver crawled down his spine. "That sort of thing is a little hard to forget," he said bitterly.

"I wasn't there when it happened," Ethan said. "I was out of town, visiting my grandparents. My first day back I was in yearbook, and everybody was talking about this photo-"

"Yeah, I was there for that," Spencer snapped. "You saw it, I guess?"

"I saw it," Ethan said. "I was the one who threw it away." He swirled the contents of his glass. "You've gone through some shit, Spencer Reid. I never heard you talk about it, not once. I mean...fuck, the whole school knew your mom was sick and your dad walked out, and the toughest thing you ever talked about was whether or not you were going to get a good score on your SATs."

"Standardized tests are hard when you're eleven."

"Yeah, so's getting tortured by a dozen football players," Ethan shrugged.

Spencer bit back a sigh. "Maybe I should just quit the BAU," he said. "I could make more money in a private sector anyway." He half smiled. "Fewer chances of getting kidnapped and tortured in a white collar job, I'm pretty sure."

"Don't change the subject. I know what you're trying to do," Ethan said. "And you can bullshit all you want, you were talking about the FBI and the BAU when you were eight years old."

"I'm not eight years old anymore, I'm twenty-five."

"Yeah, that's still a baby in your field," Ethan said. He set down his drink. "Listen, Spencer...you can't self-destruct like this. I'm sure that team of yours can tell something's wrong, and I'm sure they want to help you, but you gotta meet somebody in the middle. And if you keep going the way you're going, you know you can't keep your job if you can only function if you're high as a kit." He leaned forward and touched Spencer's knee lightly. "You're gonna end killing yourself, kid. And that's not okay."

* * *

Garcia massaged her temples lightly with her fingertips. She should have left the office at least an hour ago, but with her team in Louisiana with a Jack the Ripper knock off on the loose, she was perfectly happy staying at her computer a little while longer until they were accounted for for the night.

"I've already ordered Chinese food once today," she said aloud. "Should I dare order a second time for dinner? Treat myself?"

She picked up a little hamster figure on her desk. "Yes, Garcia, you absolutely should!" she said in a high pitched voice.

Her phone rang and she dropped the hamster quickly. "Hello, yes, I was not playing with toys," she said.

"Hey, Garcia."

She grinned. "Of course, if it's you, Agent Morgan, there are some different toys I could-"

"You're on speaker."

"Hi, Garcia," Emily said, a hint of barely contained mirth in her voice.

"Dammit, Derek, you really ought to lead with 'I'm on speaker,' otherwise I will keep saying all sorts of inappropriate things for inappropriate audiences," she sighed.

"Well, I find it amusing," Emily offered.

"I appreciate that," Garcia said. "So why did you two lovely people call me this evening?"

"Yeah...we can't find Reid," Morgan said.

Garcia frowned. "I thought he was on the plane," she said. "He was supposed to be on the plane, why is he not on the plane? Did you lose him? Did you lose my sweet baby angel?"

"No, we didn't lose him, he's just not answering his phone," he said. "Can you track him?"

"Yes, absolutely, I can track him in a heartbeat," she said, pulling up a new window on her closest screen. "Is he okay? Did somebody take him?"

"No, he went out to meet up with a friend of his," Morgan said. "Some guy he went to high school with. Ethan."

Garcia frowned. "I've never heard him mention a friend from high school," she said.

"Yeah. Me neither. Apparently he went to high school with Reid, and then enrolled in the academy but dropped out after one day," Morgan said.

The screen finished loading. "Well, I have his location," she said. "His phone is currently at a jazz lounge near Bourbon Street."

"Yeah, that's where-"

"Where Ethan Powell, age thirty-one, graduate of Las Vegas High School and one-time academy student works?" Garcia said. "Yeah, I looked him up. He graduated from Brown summa cum laude, enrolled in the FBI academy and almost immediately dropped out...his trail goes blank for a few years, but he's worked at a number of New Orleans establishments as a musician."

"Does he have a criminal record?" Morgan asked.

She clicked around. "A couple of DUIs," she said. "He...ooh, about a year after he quit the academy he was enrolled in a rehab program."

"So that's who Reid is with?" Morgan said. "Instead of answering Prentiss's calls and getting on the plane."

"As far as I can tell," she said. "Maybe he just didn't hear the calls. Or his phone isn't working right. Or maybe he's so caught up talking to his old pal that time got away from him."

"Garcia, does any of that sound like Reid?"

She sighed. "Not even in the slightest," she said.

Morgan was quiet for a moment. "Hold on a second," he said. She could hear the sound of a door clicking shut.

"Are you hiding from Prentiss in the bathroom?" she asked.

"Garcia, I need you to do something, and it's a little invasive, but I think you'll understand," Morgan said, his voice hushed. "I need you to look up Spencer's medical records."

Garcia flexed her fingers over the keys. "Ooh, yeah, that's...yeah," she said. "But yes, I totally understand."

She keyed in the commands and Spencer's medical records unscrolled in front of her. "Has he seen a doctor lately?" Morgan asked. "Or a therapist? Anybody. I know he said he saw a doctor recently, but he wouldn't give any details."

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, he saw his general practitioner a few weeks ago."

"Not a psychologist, or a specialist?"

"No, just a GP," Garcia said. "And he was prescribed dilaudid."

"That's a painkiller," Morgan said. "A really, really strong one. Is he in that much pain?"

"I guess," Garcia said. "Maybe that's what's been bothering him the past few months."

"It can't be just that," Morgan said desperately. "Just being in pain wouldn't make him act like the way he's been acting."

"I don't know what to tell you, sweetness," she said. She scanned through the rest of the recent records, looking for anything that might be a breakthrough, but there was nothing there. "Have you talked to him?"

"Garcia, we've all been trying to talk to him," Morgan said. "He just says he's fine."

"Maybe you're asking the wrong questions," she suggested.

"What should we be saying?" Morgan said, and she could hear the frustration in his voice. "I keep telling him that I'm here whenever he wants to talk, but-"

"Maybe he doesn't want to talk," she said. "Maybe you have to ask him what you need to do. Spencer's great at talking about things that aren't important, but the important things scare him. If you keep just talking about how he feels, he's going to change the subject a million times and suddenly you're talking about quantum mechanics in Star Trek: Voyager. I think you need to ask him about something more tangible."

He was silent for a moment. "Damn," he said. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Yes, well, I may not have an IQ of 187 like our resident genius, but I do have flashes of brilliance," she grinned. "You and Prentiss stay safe in Galveston. I'll keep tracking Reid, make sure he's okay."

"You let me know if there's anything wrong?"

"The very second," she promised. "Fly safe."

She hung up the phone and sighed. Spencer's records were still scrolling across the screen; she closed the window reluctantly, but she kept the window tracking his cell phone. Just in case.

* * *

Spencer slipped into the hotel lobby, scanning for other members of the team. The coast looked clear and he darted quickly to the stairs.

What was supposed to be just an hour or two had turned into the entire day. It was almost midnight, and he was sneaking back to his room like a teenager, afraid of being caught. Ethan had invited him back to his place after his last set, but he knew that was pushing it way too far.

"Hey, where've you been, Spence? I thought you were in Galveston."

His hotel key clattered to the floor. "Uh, JJ," he stammered. He was afraid she could smell the alcohol on his breath. He never drank. "Um...what about Galveston?"

JJ's hair was a mess, a sure sign she'd been tangling it around her fingers, which was a sure sign that something had her rattled. "Gideon said you and Morgan and Prentiss were supposed to talk to a potential victim's fiancee, she relocated to Texas after Katrina," she said.

Spencer's stomach plummeted to his shoes. That was the call he'd missed. That wasn't good. "No, I...didn't have cell service, I guess, I didn't get a call," he said.

It was a stupid lie, but JJ didn't seem to notice. "They think the unsub's a woman," she said.

"Really?" he frowned. "That's unusual."

"That's putting it mildly." she sighed. "Will said it was a theory his father had never looked into."

"Will?" he repeated.

"William LaMontagne, the lead detective," she said impatiently. "He...you know what, don't worry about it. They need us to get to the station as early as possible tomorrow so I need to sleep while I still can. See you in the morning."

"Yeah, see you," he echoed. He let himself into his empty room and flipped on the lights.

He felt like he'd been hit by a train. Lunch had been a long time earlier and he'd had three, maybe four drinks. And his last dilaudid dose had been a long, long time ago, and he could feel withdrawal crawling on his skin like spiders.

He dug around in his go-bag and pulled out the little orange bottle. The pills rattled merrily inside. He studied them closely.

_You're gonna end killing yourself, kid. And that's not okay._

Ethan was right. He needed to stop.

He tucked the bottle back into its spot, stripped off his clothes, and laid down in his bed. He could do it. He could quit, and no one on the team would ever know, and all of this would eventually be a distant memory. Like the goalpost.

He slept fitfully, leaving all the lights still on. Around two he rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom to throw up- he wasn't sure it was the alcohol or withdrawal, but it was awful either way. He brushed his teeth and dragged himself back to bed, intensely grateful that Morgan wasn't there to see him.

He woke up again at four and took a hit. It was just for the time being, he told himself. He'd quit when he was back home and off the case. It would be easier.

He got up just early enough to get coffee before heading back to the police department. Despite giving in and taking the dose, the shaking in his hands had intensified tenfold. At least he had always been clumsy; if he dropped anything no one would be particularly surprised.

He walked into the conference room to see Morgan and Prentiss already at the table. It was too late to back out. "Hey, you guys are back from Galveston?" he said, trying to sound casual.

"First light this morning," Morgan said shortly. "Where were you?"

He fussed with his bag, avoiding eye contact. "I was out with a friend. I already told you."

"I called you four times," Prentiss said.

"I didn't have any cell phone reception, so I didn't get your message until late."

Prentiss rolled her eyes. "Right," she said.

He shrank back, a little startled. That wasn't the reaction he'd expected from her. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Our unsub's a woman," Morgan said.

Spencer looked away. Morgan was disappointed in him, and he hated it. Morgan had never been disappointed in him before.

Hotch walked into the room. "We just found another body in the quarter," he said. "Gideon and LaMontagne are already on their way. I want the three of you to meet them there." Spencer struuggled to his feet, holding tightly onto his bag. "Reid."

He halted. "Uh-huh?"

Morgan and Prentiss slipped past him into the hallway. "Reid, I gave you a lot of leeway yesterday," Hotch said. "I expected you back within an hour or two. Is there a reason you went AWOL?"

"I didn't have any cell service and I didn't get the call until it was too late," he said. The lie sounded dumber and dumber every time he said it, but he had to stick to his story.

Hotch crossed his arms. "I'll turn a blind eye just this once," he said. "But I expect you to be on your best behavior for the duration of our time in Louisiana. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," he mumbled.

"And I expect you to complete the file on the Hankel case when we get back," Hotch said. "I understand that you've needed time, but if you don't feel the need to complete your mandated therapy sessions, then nearly five months is enough time for you to decompress before completing your work."

His heart squeezed in his chest. "Yes, sir," he said again.

Hotch nodded. "Let's go."

Spencer sat in the back of the SUV, staying silent, his thoughts tumbling. On one hand, he could hear Hotch's disapproving voice telling him to stay on his best behavior. On the other, he could hear Ethan- _you know, I may not be changing the world, but...my music makes me happy._

Did his job make him happy? Did anything make him happy?

"Earth to Reid," Morgan said, and he realized with a start that the car had parked. "Let's go."

Spencer climbed out after him. No "kid," no "pretty boy." Morgan was pissed. His stomach hurt. He'd never seen Morgan this angry at him before.

The latest victim had been dumped in a barren concrete alleyway; Gideon was already there with the local PD. Morgan pulled on a pair of gloves and knelt by the body. "Throat's been cut. He's been disemboweled, too."

"Reeks of booze," Gideon commented. "It's more than a pattern."

"Only this time she cut off the earlobe."

"She's sticking with the Ripper's paradigm," he offered.

Prentiss frowned. "What do you mean?"

These were facts. He could handle facts. "In one letter of correspondence, Jack the Ripper promised to cut the earlobe off of his next victim and he did, it was the one day that he killed twice."

"So she's gonna kill again by the end of the day," Gideon said.

"Okay, what do we know about female serial killers?" Emily said.

"Basically, you have two types-"

"The Sante Kimes model- cold, calculated, preys on men for money," Morgan said. "Takes her time building relationships."

"It's more likely we're dealing with the Aileen Wuornos archetype," Spencer corrected. "Motivated by paranoia and fear, luring men with sex."

"Our unsub's organized," Gideon said. "She follows a routine. She meets men in a bar, flirts with them over drinks, and suggests that they consummate the evening in an alley."

"We need to be in those streets," Morgan said.

The New Orleans detective walked over to them and handed Prentiss a plastic evidence bag. "Office just brought me this," LaMontagne said.

Prentiss studied the note in the bag. "Dear boss," she read. "By now I have rid the world of one more. So many men, so little time. I hope you don't mind the mess. They make it so easy, I just can't help myself. Yours truly."

"You're right, Morgan," Gideon said. "We do need to be in the streets. She's targeting these men in public, crowded areas. If we're going to stop her, we need to go where she goes. All of us."

Spencer shifted his weight. He knew that was directed towards him. He had to go back to flying under the radar, at least for the time being.

* * *

Emily put her hands on her hips, listening closely. "I'm going to stay here as your main communication point," Hotch said. "The rest of you are going to travel in pairs. JJ and LaMontagne, Gideon and Prentiss, Morgan and Reid. Stay close, make wise choices. Working in crowds is risky, we don't want to endanger civilians. Don't hesitate to call for backup. Any questions?" Emily shook her head; no one spoke up. "Stay safe, everyone."

They split into their respective pairs. She was a little intimidated to be paired one on one with Jason Gideon, but she had to admit she was relieved to not be paired with Reid. The case was hard enough to handle without having to walk on eggshells around him.

The French Quarter was an explosion of bright lights and a million conversations shouted over live jazz and the scent of spilled alcohol. She'd visited New Orleans before, in her reckless party-girl phase, but this seemed completely different. Early summer humidity crept over her skin; her sleeveless purple top was light but sweat clung to her hairline. She followed Gideon to a terrace where they could look down over the courtyard.

"So what are your thoughts?" Gideon asked.

"My thoughts?" she repeated. He nodded. "Well...I mean, it's an unusual case. Female serial killers are rare enough already. A female serial killer who emulates Jack the Ripper and targets healthy young men is...well, a lot more rare."

"'So many men, so little time'," Gideon quoted. "So she's on a quest...to wipe out the race."

"Or... the father who molested her?" she suggested. "Some people think Jack the Ripper mutilated women after his mother sexually abused him for years."

Gideon started to walk towards the crowd and she followed him. "For someone so enraged, this unsub sounds oddly apologetic for leaving a bloody crime scene. Why?"

She picked her steps carefully, her hands tucked in her jeans pockets. "That might be what LaMontagne figured out right before he died," she said.

"Possibly," Gideon said. "Unfortunately, we'll never know."

"Do you think 'Jones' is another connection to Jack the Ripper?" Emily suggested.

Gideon didn't seem to hear her; for a moment she wondered if she should repeat herself or just drop it. "Did you give that newest letter to Reid?" he asked. "He knows that Ripper case inside out. He may see something we're missing."

Emily hesitated. She thought of Reid slinking into the conference room, his hands shaking and nearly spilling his coffee, trying to sell his lie about bad cell service; she thought about their trip to the morgue the day before, how he faded in and out of focus, wobbling on his feet. "I don't think-" she blurted out, and she regretted it instantly as Gideon stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. "Uh…"

"What is it?" Gideon asked.

She thought of Reid snapping at her at the homeless shelter, his skin paperwhite and his cheekbones sharp and hollow.

_Oh, in the months that you know me, you've never seen me act this way? Hey, no offense, Emily, but...you don't really know what you're talking about, do you?_

"Nothing," she said.

Gideon shook his head. "Come on," he said. "You think I'm not aware something's going on with him?"

She thought of Spencer violently ill on the bathroom floor in the Texas precinct, begging her not to tell anyone, refusing any help. For a moment she almost blurted it out, but Gideon moved away from her through the crowd, and she followed him.

* * *

There was too much happening around him. The lights overhead were too bright in the night sky, the music was too loud and clashed with a thousand conversations around him; the scent of alcohol was sharp and bitter and reminded him painfully of the hangover pressing against his temples.

Morgan seemed unbothered by the chaos, fiddling with a toothpick. "Most of the women are out in groups, so keep your eyes open for someone on their own," he said.

Spencer nodded. Morgan hadn't said anything not pertaining to the case all day. He hated it.

The oppressive humidity settled thick and hot on his skin, his hair plastering to his forehead and the nape of his neck. He regretted not wearing a short sleeved shirt, but he hadn't worn anything like that in months. Short sleeves would show the reddened track marks in the crook of his elbow, still raw and unhealed, and he couldn't risk that.

"So, what-"

"You gonna tell me why you missed that flight to Galveston?" Morgan interrupted sharply.

Spencer dropped his head. "I already told you, there was no cell reception," he said.

Morgan's lips thinned. "Right."

He swallowed hard. "What?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light.

"I mean, anytime you want to come up with a better answer, I'm standing right here," Morgan said.

Spencer looked away across the courtyard, trying to summon up the words. _I got drunk with a guy I knew in high school, and even though we haven't spoken in years, he called me out on my drug addiction._

But he saw a woman in a striking red top, scanning the crowd, and his own problems flew out the window. "Dark curls, three o'clock," he said in a low voice.

"I got it," Morgan said. "She's eyeing those guys outside that bar. Let's go."

He took off through the crowd and Spencer followed in his wake, his heart pounding. "Should I call for backup?" he asked.

"Not yet," Morgan said. "Not until we see something concrete."

They followed the woman at a safe distance, only to see her address her prey by name in a lighthearted voice and hand him back his wallet. "Well, that's a bust," Morgan said. "Come on, kid. Let's get back to work."

Spencer followed him back through the crowd, some of the tension in his chest relaxing. Morgan called him "kid." Maybe things would get back to normal.

* * *

JJ had worked on some overwhelming, confusing cases over the years, but this one was a hell of a lot more than she ever expected. And this was even more confusing, because every time she heard William LaMontagne's absolutely irritating Louisiana accent her heart turned flipflops. She had certainly never experienced that in the field.

"Well, that was a big ol' bust, wasn't it," William drawled. "Sorry about that."

"I guess so, but you don't need to be sorry, it's not your fault," she said.

"I'm more sorry you had to spend your first visit to the French Quarter working," he said, flashing her a bright grin. "Someday y'all will have to come back, try it again."

"Yeah, that'd be nice," she said. She looked down at her watch. "Wow, it's late. I...I should probably get some sleep."

"See you in the morning, then, Jennifer," he said before turning and walking away.

"JJ," she called after him, and he turned back. "You...can call me JJ."

"See you in the morning, JJ," he said.

She exhaled, wiggling her fingers. Now was not the time to flirt, _now was definitely not the time to flirt._ She pushed the hotel door open and relaxed in the cool air conditioning in the lobby.

"Never thought you'd be a sucker for an accent," Morgan teased.

She jumped. "What? No, I'm not a sucker for an accent," she sputtered. "Does he have an accent? I hadn't noticed."

Morgan grinned. "Oh, come on, little mama, they can see those heart eyes from space," he said. He threw an arm around her shoulders. "Don't worry, I won't tell."

She rolled her eyes and shrugged his arm off. "You're in a better mood," she said. "You've been sulking all day."

"Sulking, really?"

"That's what I'd call it," she said. "You can't possibly still be mad at Spencer for missing the plane, right?"

Morgan stopped. "JJ, you can't possibly believe his bullshit story," he said. "There's no way that his phone just didn't work. He missed that plane on purpose and you know it."

She sighed and pushed the elevator button. "I know," she said quietly. "I just...it's not like him."

"Jayje, nothing he's done since Georgia has been like him," Morgan said. "We can't keep letting him self-destruct and claim we're giving him space. We gotta do something."

"Like what?" she said. "He won't even take himself to the doctor."

"Oh, no, he did," Morgan said.

The silver elevator doors slid open. "How do you know that? Did he tell you?"

Morgan had the grace to look a little embarrassed as they stepped into the elevator. "I...may have had Garcia look into it," he admitted.

"Derek Morgan! That is entirely unethical," she scolded. The door slid closed. "So what happened?"

"Not a lot," he said. "He saw his GP and got a painkiller prescription."

"That's it?" she said. "Not therapy, not a specialist?"

"Nope. And the prescription was for dilaudid, and that's the intense stuff, so there has to be some kind of pain he's in that he won't talk about."

She frowned. "That's strange."

"Why?" he asked.

"Dilaudid was the same drug Hankel used to take," she said. "Prentiss and I talked to his sponsor from his NA meetings, Hankel made his own blend of dilaudid and a psychedelic." She bit her lip as the doors opened on their floor. "It's strange that Spencer would end up prescribed the same thing."

"Probably not that strange," Morgan said. "If he's hurting, maybe that's just the best option for him."

"Maybe," she said. "I'll see you in the morning."

She let herself into her hotel room and flipped on the lights. Morgan seemed so sure that it was a coincidence, but the gnawing pull at the pit of her stomach wouldn't let it go. It wasn't a coincidence, and she knew it, she just knew it.

She remembered hovering in Spencer's hospital room while they worked over him, remembered the red marks peppering his inner arm.

_Looks like track marks. He must have been injected with something. A couple of times, it looks like._

What if Tobias Hankel had started something that Spencer couldn't finish?

* * *

Spencer took a step back, letting the others take over. His heart was racing too fast but his mind felt thick and sluggish. He'd participated in hundreds of takedowns at this point in his career, but he couldn't do it like this anymore. Or maybe he just couldn't do the job anymore.

He let the others take over- cuffing the unsub and leading her out of the seedy hotel room, tending to the victim and handing him over to the EMTs, securing the scene and protecting evidence. He couldn't do it. At least not right now.

He slipped outside, unnoticed, and took a deep breath in an attempt to steady himself, but the night air was hot and sticky, like breathing in steam, and it did nothing to cool the burning in his veins. His hands shook as he took off his bulletproof vest and left it on the hood of one of the unmarked SUVs. He needed to get out of there, needed to clear his head.

He ended up back at the lounge where Ethan worked without consciously making the decision to walk there. The bouncer checked his ID and he found himself standing at the edge of the room, his hands in his pockets, lost in the crowd.

"Hey, you're Ethan's friend, right?"

He glanced up. "Oh, hi, um...Stephanie," he said. It took him a moment to remember her name.

The bartender smiled at him. "You want anything?" she asked. "Don't worry, it's on the house."

"Oh, uh...no, thank you."

Stephanie tilted her head. "Maybe just some ice water, darlin'?" she offered. He nodded silently; she filled a glass and handed it to him. "Go on and find a seat, Ethan's set is about to start."

He mumbled his thanks and wandered over to an empty armchair. His whole body ached, soreness running deep in his muscles, and the chair was surprisingly comfortable. A faint headache buzzed at his temples and he sipped the cold water carefully.

Ethan stepped up to the small stage to a smattering of polite applause and sat down at the keyboard. He played easily, effortlessly, without any need for sheet music.

He remembered Ethan playing the piano back in high school. Of course, his parents had pressured him to drop out- playing the piano for the school orchestra wasn't nearly as impressive as participating in student government and AP chemistry and SAT prep courses. He'd seen Ethan's parents at every school function, his lawyer dad and his stay-at-home mom with their neat catalogue-perfect clothes and polished smiles, talking to each teacher about their son's performance in class.

Sometimes he envied Ethan's over-involved parents. They were overbearing, but they were there. Ethan never had to worry about the water getting shut off or the fridge being empty or how he was going to replace his shoes when the soles fell off. Ethan was always well-dressed, always carried fresh notebooks and unsharpened pencils on the first days of school, always bought whatever he wanted for lunch in the cafeteria.

But in retrospect…... that didn't seem to make Ethan happy. Ethan fought him neck-and-neck for top scores in class because his parents wanted him to. Ethan applied for Harvard and Yale and MIT because his parents wanted him to. Ethan enrolled in the FBI academy because his parents wanted him to.

But Spencer couldn't remember a time when he didn't dream about becoming an agent. He had planned his career when he was eight years old. Imagining his life in Quantico had propelled him through his time in college as a child.

Did he still want it? Could he still do it?

He watched Ethan play, his eyes closed as he was swept up in the music. He remembered Ethan playing on the old upright piano in the school theater before assemblies, plunking out film scores and pop song melodies from memory. Music had always brought Ethan more joy than getting a blue ribbon at the science fair or a gold trophy at a spelling bee.

 _What_ , Spencer thought, _brings me joy?_

He honestly didn't know.

* * *

Gideon crossed his arms as he watched the last squad car pull away from the curb, the sirens and lights switching off in the dark. Everything was tied up and put away, except-

"Where's Reid?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I haven't seen Reid since...well, I don't remember when I last saw him," Morgan said. "He was with us on the takedown, but he-"

"Found his vest," Prentiss said, holding it up. "He left it behind."

"Shit," Morgan sighed, dragging his hand over his head. "I don't know what the fuck is wrong with that kid."

"Where could he have gone?" Prentiss asked.

Gideon looked up at the night sky. "Don't worry about it," he said quietly. "I think I know where he is. Oh, and...don't tell Hotch. If he asks, just tell him he's out with me."

"Good luck," Morgan said.

Gideon headed down the street towards a nicer section of town. It wasn't like Spencer to disappear, no, but then again he'd never known him to have friends outside of the team before either. If he was right, he'd find him at the bar where his friend worked.

Morgan was right, though. No one knew what exactly was wrong with Spencer. The boy was increasingly withdrawn, sullen and angry at turns, and worryingly silent. He'd seen agents suffer after traumatic cases, but he'd never seen this kind of behavior before.

And unlike other agents, he felt...responsible. Maybe if he hadn't given a fifteen-year-old kid his business card after a college lecture, or pulled strings to keep him in the academy, or insisted that he join his team, this wouldn't have happened.

Gideon stepped into the lounge, and there he was, sitting in an armchair with his back to him. He bit back a sigh of relief. At least he was safe.

He crossed the room and sat down in the armchair next to him. Spencer started in surprise, his big hazel eyes going wider, but Gideon said nothing. If they were going to talk, he was going to let Spencer speak first. He got comfortable in the chair instead, keeping his eyes on the musician playing on the small stage. Spencer crossed his arms protectively over his stomach.

"You found me," he said in a small voice.

"You're not all that hard to profile," Gideon said. Spencer dropped his head. "Your friend is good."

Spencer was quiet. They sat in silence, listening to the music.

"I missed that plane on purpose."

This was monumental, but Gideon didn't blink. "I know," he said quietly.

Spencer swallowed hard, tried to speak, stopped, tried again. "I'm struggling," he whispered.

Gideon paused. Spencer worked so hard to keep from being vulnerable around the team- overcompensating for being the baby, because intelligence and education couldn't always beat an extra ten, fifteen, twenty years of experience. This kind of fragility was rare for him, and he couldn't afford to say the wrong thing to him.

"Well...anybody who's been through what you've been through recently would," he said.

Spencer looked down at the floor, his cheeks hollow in the warm yellow light. "This is all I was groomed for," he said. "I never even...I never even considered another option."

"Now you're questioning whether or not you're strong enough to be here," Gideon said gently.

Spencer nodded. "Yeah," he whispered.

He needed to choose his words carefully, needed to keep from scaring him away and closing himself off again. He couldn't lose him. "I have been playing at this job in one way or another for almost thirty years," he said. "I've felt lost. I've felt great. I have felt scared, sick, insane." He shrugged, palms up. "I don't know. I guess the day this job stops gnawing at your soul and...your hands stop feeling cold... maybe that's the time to leave."

Spencer pressed his lips together. "I guess I just needed to try to figure out If I could step away from this job," he said.

"And?"

Spencer lifted his chin, his eyes too bright. "I'll never miss another plane again," he said, his voice cracking.

Gideon smiled. Spencer didn't smile back, but he could only hope that he was reassured somehow. He knew this didn't mean everything was back to normal, because Spencer would never be the same kid he was before Tobias Hankel took him, and clearly the damage ran deeper than anyone could see. But maybe this was a crack in his armor.

He sat with Spencer in comfortable silence, listening to the music. "I think...I'd like to go back," Spencer said.

Gideon raised an eyebrow. "You're sure?" he said. "You don't want to stay and talk to your friend?"

Spencer shook his head. "No, I can talk to him later," he said. "I'm ready to go."

"All right," Gideon said. He stood up and offered a hand to help him up. Spencer accepted his hand, wobbling to his feet. "Then let's go."

No, Spencer wasn't ready to fully confess what was wrong. But he was a step closer.

* * *

He reached for the dilaudid the second he got home. He kicked off his shoes, leaving them with his go-bag in the middle of the living room floor, and wandered into the bathroom. The little glass vial was waiting for him at the bottom of his medicine cabinet. He'd been saving it, there was just enough for a few more doses.

Dreamily he rolled up his sleeve and tied the band around his bicep. His veins made a blue ribbon in his pale arm; pinprick marks scattered like stars on his skin. He drew the liquid into the syringe and he slid the silver needle into the vein, leaving a hot red dot of blood welling up in its place. The dilaudid bubbled through his body, warm and blissful and forgiving, and he closed his eyes.

He would quit soon. He would.

Just not yet.

Spencer threw himself into work. He got there earlier, left late. He was sleeping less and less, surviving on coffee and vending machine food. It was like high school again.

He still couldn't get himself off the dilaudid. He tried, his first weekend off from work, and he couldn't do it, he barely lasted twelve hours before he was scrambling for his next dose. It would happen eventually, he told himself, when the time was right. Maybe when he ran out. That would be the final push. He knew it.

No one mentioned his disappearances in New Orleans but he still felt like he needed to work himself back into everyone's good graces. He did everything asked of him and more, running errands, taking on extra paperwork, going on coffee runs. No one had told him he was in trouble, but he needed the forgiveness.

There was one thing left that he needed to do, something he'd been putting off for months. He waited till the end of the day, when everyone else said their goodbyes for the night and he could be alone.

He pulled up the Hankel case file and skimmed through everyone else's contributions. His fingers trembled on the keys, and all he wanted to do was run, but he needed to do it. He took a deep breath, and finally he began to type.

* * *

Hotch bit back a yawn as he walked through the glass doors. It had been a rough night- he and Haley had been kept up with a cranky, colicky Jack- and when he couldn't fall back asleep he figured he might as well pick up a strong coffee and get to work early.

He walked into the bullpen and stopped dead in his tracks. Reid was hunched over his desk, his head resting on his arms, and if he wasn't mistaken he was wearing the same clothes he'd worn the day before.

Hotch set down his coffee on Prentiss's desk and placed his hand gently on his narrow back. "Reid," he said. "Reid, wake up."

"'m sorry," Reid mumbled. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

Hotch rubbed his back between his sharply jutting shoulderblades. Now was not the time for Spencer to have a nightmare. "Reid, wake up," he said, raising his voice a little.

Reid flinched, jerking back in his seat and raising his head. His eyes were wild and when he saw Hotch he yelped, flinging himself away from him. "I'm sorry!" he screamed.

Hotch grabbed him by the arms. "It's me, Reid, it's me," he said. "Spencer. You're all right, you fell asleep at your desk."

Reid blinked unsteadily. "I...what?" he mumbled. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm. "Hotch?"

"Yeah, it's Hotch," he said. He was intensely grateful that he'd gotten to work early before anyone could have seen this. Reid was a wreck, his hair rumpled and his clothes wrinkled. "Take a minute, get yourself together, okay? And then meet me in my office."

Reid nodded, pushed himself stiffly out of his chair, and stumbled towards the bathroom. Hotch glanced at the computer screen. It was a case file- the Hankel file. He swore under his breath. No wonder Spencer was a mess. Maybe he shouldn't have pushed him to finish it after all.

He picked up his coffee and went to his office. Reid peeked in about twenty-minutes later. "Hi," he said tentatively.

"Close the door," Hotch said. Reid obeyed and took a seat across from his desk, clasping his hands on his knees like a chastised child. "Don't look at me like that, this isn't a formal inquest."

Reid dropped his head. "I'm sorry," he mumbled.

Hotch sighed. "Reid, what's wrong?" he asked. He shrugged. "You can't keep acting like you're fine and pretending like no one's noticed. We've all noticed, and we don't know what to do to help you."

"Nothing's wrong," Reid said softly.

"Reid," Hotch said. "You're hurting. You can't keep going like this. You're killing yourself."

Reid pressed his lips together, his eyes glassy and wet. "I can't stop," he whispered.

"Can't stop what?"

And Spencer broke. He covered his face with his hands and crumpled into the chair, his shoulders shaking, and he broke into sobs. Hotch got up from his desk and sat beside him, placing his hand on his back. He didn't know what to say, or what to do, but he stayed beside him, letting him cry, waiting until Spencer began to quiet down.

"What can I do to help you?" Hotch asked gently.

Spencer wiped at his eyes with his shirtsleeves. "I need the week off," he said, raspy and desperate. "Please."

"Absolutely," Hotch said. "But I want to talk to you before you go." He squeezed his shoulder. "Take a few minutes, get yourself cleaned up and pull yourself together, and then come talk to me. Okay?"

Spencer hesitated, but after a long moment he nodded. "Thanks," he said, and he bolted out of the office.

Hotch rubbed at his jaw. He was left at a total loss, and he wasn't sure if what he'd just done had helped Reid, or made things a million times worse.

After a moment he moved the chairs back to their spots, sat down at his computer, and pulled up the notes Reid had added to the Hankel file.

* * *

Spencer threw the bathroom door shut and turned the lock, his hands shaking. He was stiff and sore all over; he didn't know if it was sleeping in his desk chair overnight or withdrawal.

It was now or never. He had a whole week to detox and get himself back to normal. The next time he walked into the bullpen, it would be like nothing had ever happened, and no one would ever know.

He fumbled in his pocket for the little orange plastic bottle. The pills clanked together and he shook one out into his palm. He threw it in his mouth and winced as he swallowed it dry, waiting for it to sink into him, burn him from the inside out, let him sink into the quiet peaceful forgetting.

He would quit. He would. Soon.

Just one more time, that was all.

Just...just one more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF. 
> 
> I held off on posting an update for a while while the servers updated; hopefully y'all got an update email! I haven't been getting any emails for a while now, but I've been checking comments!
> 
> And I am SUPER active on tumblr right now (I got confirmation that I'm not going back to work till July) and I've been filling a LOT of prompts! My tumblr is themetaphorgirl and I tag all my writing with "caitlin writes things." Come chat or request prompts, I love making new friends!
> 
> AND! I've started developing a new AU! It's a boarding school AU and I'm obsessed with it because they're all adorable teenagers and there's a ton of angst and I've got a 30-chapter outline completed already. I was going to wait to start posting new fics until I finished this series...but maybe I'll start posting it sooner rather than later. Let me know what you think!! Everything with the boarding school AU is tagged "AU: patron saint of lost causes" on my tumblr.
> 
> Special thanks to Dayanna for the medical advice, expecto-weasleys for the great beta-ing, and dubuh for cheerleading!! What a great squad I have.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and leaving comments and kudos!! I can't believe this story broke 100 kudos before I posted this chapter!! I'm so happy that y'all have been enjoying my writing.
> 
> So yeah!! Thank you so much for reading! I'm going to go answer comments now, so if you've left me a comment recently and you're not getting emails, take a peek and see if I've responded! Or come hang out with me on tumblr.
> 
> Up next: they stood by and watched him self-destruct for long enough. Spencer was going to try to detox on his own, but he needs them to get him through it.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like the show really glossed over Spencer's addiction (like it wasn't even a B plot, it was just casually mentioned for three episodes) so I really wanted to delve into it deeply.
> 
> Originally I was going to make this four chapters, with the last chapter the detox/withdrawal, but after posting "when you're falling in a forest" with that format, I think I've decided against it. I really regret putting it up like that; I think people saw the first three chapters of the gap fill and opted out, so I don't think a lot of people ended reading the fourth chapter with all the recovery stuff. I really really regret it! I worked so hard on it and I just think people didn't read far enough to get to it. So I'm going to post the detox chapter separate from the addiction chapters.
> 
> (and if you want some good whump, please read chapter four of "when you're falling in a forest," and please let me know what you think because I worked really hard on it.)
> 
> The poem quoted at this end of this chapter is "Not Waving, But Drowning" by Stevie Smith, which seemed really poignant and apt for what Spencer's feeling at the moment.
> 
> Extra special thanks to Dayanna and expecto-weasleys (on tumblr) for their help on this chapter!! And thank you so much for your comments and kudos. I really appreciate it! 
> 
> My tumblr is themetaphorgirl if you'd like to chat or request a prompt fill!
> 
> Up next: he didn't want to rely on the dilaudid, but at this point he didn't think he could survive without it. He just had to keep everyone else from finding out


End file.
